.00^;..- 
.«.••••• 


fe// 


r^A^ 


LIBRARY    OF   THE    UNIVERSITY   OF    CALIFORNIA 


LIBRARY    OF   THE    UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA 

c\u_/ra 


€f 
1 

i 


«f 


^A 


^ 


VEBSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA 


LIBRARY    OF   THE    UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA 


VERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA 


/TO 


O/^AlD 

LIBRARY    OF   THE    UNIVERSITY   OF    CALIFORNIA 


CALIFORNIA 


CALIFORNIA 


WHY   WE    LAUGH. 


WHY  WE  LAUGH. 


BY  SAMUEL  S.  COX, 

AUTHOR  OF  "  BUCKEYE  ABROAD,"  "  EIGHT  YEARS  IN  CONGRESS," 
"  WINTER  SUNBEAMS,"  ETC. 


NEW   YORK: 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN     SQUARE. 
1876. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1876,  by 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


PREFACE. 


THE  idea  which  prompted  this  volume  was  to  string 
such  humors  as  were  illustrative,  upon  some  philosophic 
threads,  which  had  been  floating»in  my  mind. 

Has  not  humor  a  philosophy  of  its  own  —  physical, 
mental,  and  moral  ?  It  is  said  by  Hazlitt,  in  his  article 
on  wit  and  humor,  that  you  can  not  give  a  reason  why 
you  laugh  ;  that  people  must  laugh  of  themselves,  or  not 
at  all.  Without  denying  that  we  laugh  with  spontaneous 
impulse,  and  sometimes  the  more,  at  any  restraint  upon 
this  impulse,  yet  the  very  categories  of  the  critic  himself 
prove  that  the  laugh  has  a  rational  philosophy.  They 
answer  the  Horatian  query — "  Quid  Rides  ?" 

Inquiring  of  one  accomplished  in  physical  science, 
and  an  expert  in  dissecting  the  parts  of  the  human  frame, 
he,  unlike  old  Burton,  found  no  melancholy  in  the  anat- 
omy. "What  portion  of  the  human  body  engages  in 
the  act  of  laughing  ?"  I  asked  him.  He  responded, 
"No  one  part  in  particular;  all  parts  work.  Health  is 
called  hearty  because  it  results  from  the  combination  of 
all  parts  in  the  laugh."  True,  the  facial  muscles  play  a 
prominent  role ;  just  as  the  face  does  in  a  man  or  a 
clock  ;  but  in  the  act  of  laughing,  every  part  is  in  exer- 


8  PREFACE. 

cise !  Every  fibre  laughs  with  the  human  being,  when 
he  condescends  to  be  amused.  Hence,  when  the  ques- 
tion, "  Why  do  you  laugh  ?"  is  asked,  the  answer  is  vain 
if  it  simply  shows,  as  another  author  undertakes  to  show, 
half  ironically,  that  we  ought  not  to  laugh  at  all,  but 
that  we  ought  only  to  smile. 

Laughter  is  not  sardonic.  It  is  not  from  the  Herba 
sardonica.  That  vegetable  may  produce  a  convulsive 
twitch.  It  may  make  involuntary  contractions  of  the 
pectoral  muscles  and  lungs;  but  these  are  not  depend- 
ent on  the  outward  sensation  or  the  inn^r  reflection. 
Hence,  this  sardonic  philosophy  properly  regards  the 
man  who  laughs  as  a  fool.  He  is  a  mountebank,  a 
clown,  a  simple,  simpering  zany.  But  laughter  has  its 
mental  causes,  and  its  logical  and  moral  consequences ; 
and  to  answer  the  question  why  these  causes  and  ef- 
fects exist  is  within  the  domain  of  an  inquiry  which  the 
sages,  from  Aristotle  to  Sydney  Smith,  and  from  him  of 
Malmesbury  down  to  the  rare  critic  I  have  quoted,  have/ 
not  disdained  to  propound. 

When,  therefore,  in  our  daily  routine,  and  in  our  Ameri- 
can life ;  when  by  highway,  as  in  the  Legislature,  or  by 
by-way,  as  at  the  hearth ;  when  in  the  newspaper  and  on 
the  stage,  in  the  car  and  in  the  steamer;  when  even  in 
the  pulpit  as  well  as  in  the  circus,  the  restless  American 
race  makes  its  music — facial,  mental,  and  moral  —  and 
thus  unshadows  its  care,  and  cheers  its  anxiety  by  humors 
so  peculiar  as  to  make  a  school  of  its  own,  the  inquiry 
which  has  the  dignity  of  philosophy  can  not  be  unworthy 
of  illustration  and  commentary.  This  I  propose  in  these 


PREFACE.  9 

pages.  The  body  of  the  suggestions,  and  the  lights 
thrown  upon  them,  are  drawn  from  those  experiences 
with  which  the  writer  has  been  most  familiar. 

Eliminate  from  the  literature  or  conduct  of  any  one 
people  the  amusing  and  amused  faculty,  and  you  produce 
a  sterility  as  dull  and  uninteresting  as  the  cinders  and 
ashes  of  the  volcanic  fields  of  Iceland.  But  include  the 
amusing  element  within  the  experiences  and  history  of 
mankind,  and  no  description  of  luxuriance,  with  grape, 
olive,  nectarine,  and  orange,  clustering  and  luscious,  such 
as  make  the  vales  of  Portugal  a  perennial  smile,  is  ade- 
quate to  emphasize  the  contrast. 

A  friend  has  raised  a  personal  question,  which  may  be 
pardonably  noticed.  Leigh  Hunt  once  said  that  he  was 
perplexed  whether  to  speak  of  himself  in  the  singular  or 
plural  number,  whether  to  subject  himself  to  the  impa- 
tience of  people  vainer  by  saying  "  {,"  or  to  hamper  him- 
self with  saying,  "we  were,"  "we  would,"  and  "we  once." 
But  resolutely,  under  Montaigne's  advice,  he  concluded 
that  he  had  plenty  of  imperfections  to  set  off  self-love ; 
so  that  he  courageously  wrote  of  himself,  regardless  of 
any  imputed  egoism. 

In  this  book,  it  is  impossible  not  to  recall  the  writer's 
experience,  and  to  impress  somewhat  of  his  personality 
upon  the  analysis.  "  We  "  beg,  however,  to  disavow  any 
intention  or  expectation  of  making  this  subtle  essence 
called  humor.  The  only  object  is,  by  collation  and  gen- 
eralization, to  show  the  humor  of  classes  and  individuals. 
Should  we  be  forbidden  to  do  this  because  now  and  then 
the  writer  has  himself  been  suspected,  though  never  fairly 


10  PREFACE. 

convicted,  of  a  joke?  Especially  in  the  delineation  and 
demonstration  of  legislative  humors,  in  recalling  those 
diversions  of  staid  Solons  in  whose  midst  many  years 
have  been  passed,  can  there  be  entire  impersonality  ? 

There  is  an  account  of  a  dramatic  Maecenas  who  took 
a  steady  boy  from  his  parents,  and,  ignorant  of  any  hu- 
morous or  other  propensity,  solemnly  dedicated  him  to 
the  Comic  Muse.  The  boy,  however,  did  ripen  into  a 
capital  comedian.  Perhaps  this  was  an  exceptional  case, 
for  there  is  no  special  chrism  whose  anointing  will  induce 
the  jolly  genius  ;  but  a  little  discipline  and  some  research 
may  enable  a  serious  soul  to  group  and  illustrate  the  hu- 
mor of  others. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I.— HUMOR  IN  GENERAL 13 

II.— AMERICAN  HUMOR  IN  PARTICULAR 34 

III.— AMERICAN  HUMOR— ITS  EXAGGERATIONS,  ETC 51 

IV.— AMERICAN  HUMOR— ITS  EXTRAVAGANCE  IN  OPIN- 
ION AND  EXPRESSION 62 

V.— HUMORS  AND  THEIR  SYNONYMS 102 

VI. — LEGISLATIVE  AND  ORATORICAL  HUMORS — ARE  THEY 

LOST  ARTS  ? 107 

VII.— HUMOR— Is  IT  A  TEST  OF  TRUTH,  OR  GREATNESS?  123 
VIII. — A  NEW  ERA  OF  HUMOR  (1840) — CONGRESSIONAL 

AND  PRESIDENTIAL 137 

IX. — SOUTHERN   HUMORS  —  LEGISLATIVE  AND  OTHER- 
WISE   144 

X.— LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.  156 

XI.— LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  INDIVIDUALLY  CONSIDERED.  184 

XII.— LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS— HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.  194 

XIII.— THE  HUMORS  OF  LEGISLATIVE  CHITCHAT 223 

XIV.— LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS— PERSONALITIES 247 

XV.— LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS— LOCALITIES 257 

XVI. — WIT  AND  IMMORALITY,  IN  AND  OUT  OF  THE  LEGIS- 
LATURE   264 

XVII. — LEGISLATIVE  ANECDOTE,  AND  ITS  APPLICATION 271 

XVIII.— LEGISLATIVE  ANECDOTE—  Continued 278 


1 2  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XIX. — LEGISLATIVE  RETORT  AND  REPARTEE 287 

XX. — SUGGESTIVE  AND  EVASIVE  HUMORS  OF  LEGISLATION  299 
XXI. — LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS — EPIGRAM,  ARGUMENT,  AND 

IRONY 308 

•XXII.— LEGISLATIVE  BURLESQUE 321 

XXIII.— MISCELLANEOUS  LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS 336 

XXIV.— HUMORS  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN— WEEVIL,  AND  ITS  CON- 
SEQUENCES   350 

XXV.— CLASSIC  HUMOR— A  HOMERIC  STUDY 363 


WHY    WE    LAUGH. 


I. 

HUMOR  IN  GENERAL. 

"  Manners  with  fortunes,  humors  turn  with  climes, 
Tenets  with  books,  and  principles  with  times." — POPE. 

HUMOR,  in  its  literal  meaning,  is  moisture.  Its  derived 
sense  is  different ;  but  while  it  is  now  a  less  sluggish  ele- 
ment than  moisture,  we  still  associate  with  humor  some 
of  its  old  relations.  In  old  times,  physicians  reckoned 
several  kinds  of  moisture  in  the  human  body — phlegm, 
blood,  choler,  and  melancholy.  They  found  one  vein 
particularly  made  for  a  laugh  to  run  in,  the  blood  of  which 
being  stirred,  the  man  laughed,  even  if  he  felt  like  crying, 
whether  he  would  or  no.  Tasso  describes  in  his  serious 
epic,  "Jerusalem  Delivered,"  the  death  of  the  knight  Ar- 
clonio,  who,  at  the  taking  of  Jerusalem,  was  slain  by  a 
Persian  lance,  which 

"  Pierced  him  through  the  vein 
Where  Laughter  has  her  fountain  and  her  seat, 
So  that  (a  dreadful  bane) 
He  laughed  for  pain,  and  laughed  himself  to  death." 

The  temper  of  the  mind  seemed  to  the  old  doctors  to 
change  as  one  or  the  other  of  these  kinds  of  moisture 
predominated.  Thus  the  mind  received  its  prevailing 


14  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

tone.  As  the  current  of  moisture  changed  from  time  to 
time,  humor  began  to  mean  the  present  disposition  of  ihe 
man.  His  characteristic  peculiarities  seemed  to  depend 
on  these  mercurial  influences  of  the  body ;  and  as  men 
never  laugh  at  that  which  is  common  to  them  all,  as  they 
never  raise  a  laugh  to  disparage  themselves,  and  as  they 
must  laugh,  they  seized  upon  the  oddities,  whims,  and  the 
angularities  of  the  "other  man,"  his  out-of-the-way  talk 
and  conduct,  and  made  these  human  ficklenesses  the 
sources  of  jocularity.  So  humor  in  our  tongue  reached 
its  present  signification. 

It  has,  however,  a  more  restricted  meaning.  Various 
definitions  have  been  given  of  it.  Some  consider  the  es- 
sence of  humor  to  be  in  its  serio-jocoseness,  as  if  it  were 
a  scarf  of  mock  gravity  cast  over  pleasantry  to  make  it 
more  attractive.  But  this  can  be  affirmed  of  humor  only 
in  part. 

Others  confound  it  with  wit.  They  define  humor  as 
the  point  in  which  pain  and  pleasure  meet  to  produce  a 
third  element,  which  partakes  of  both — a  sort  of  voluptu- 
ous torture,  like  being  pinched  by  a  pretty  girl.  Hence 
some  humor  makes  us  cry,  and  some  makes  us  laugh. 
Less  prettiness  and  more  pinching  bring  tears ;  more 
prettiness  and  less  pinching,  smiles.  It  is  the  identity 
of  contraries — candied  ill  temper,  pickled  good  nature. 
They  hold  that  contrast  alone  is  the  element  of  humor. 
This  does  not  square  with  our  theory.  Humor  has  no 
sting.  It  is  not  poisonous,  like  the  Stygian  waters, 
which  no  other  vessel  but  a  mule's  hoof  could  hold. 
The  humorous  man  is,  from  his  very  sensibility,  likely  to 
be  gentle  and  pathetic,  but  not  malignant.  He  can  rain 
tears  as  well  as  bring  smiles.  The  tear,  too,  may  have 
its  prism  of  humor.  But  pathos  has  a  law  and  an  orbit 


HUMOR   IN   GENERAL.  15 

of  its  own,  though  it  may  often  meet  in  conjunction  with 
humor. 

Humor  lies  in  a  forged  tale;  in  puns  and  phrases;  in 
ambiguities  of  sense,  or  affinity  of  sound;  in  humorous 
expression,  without  the  humorous  sense ;  in  an  odd  trope ; 
in  a  sly  question ;  in  a  smart  answer;  in  a  quirkish  reason ; 
in  a  shrewd  intimation;  in  cunning  diversion,  clever  re- 
tort, bold  speech,  tart  irony,  lusty  hyperbole,  plausible  rec- 
onciliation of  contradictions,  acute  nonsense,  counterfeit 
speech,  scenic  representation  of  persons  or  things,  affect- 
ed simplicity,  presumptuous  bluntness,  lucky  and  strange 
hits,  crafty  wresting  of  obvious  matter  to  the  purpose,  and 
rovings  of  fancy  and  windings  of  language :  in  fine,  it 
^breeds  delight  sometimes  by  surprises,  and  often  by  un- 
couthness.  It  is  a  monster  for  rarity,  and  not  for  beau- 
ty— a  Jugglmg  trick?  not  for  use,  but  for  pleasure,  and  a 
seasoning  spice  for  matters  distasteful.  It  has  an  un- 
usual and  grateful  tang,  instilling  gayety  and  airiness 
of  spirit.  This  exhaustive  exposition  is  from  Dr.  Bar- 
row. It  leaves  nothing  to  be  said.  It  answers — Quid 
Rides?  Addison,  in  his  "Genealogy  of  Humor,"  is  not 
so  comprehensive  when  he  says  that  Truth  is  the  founder 
of  the  family,  and  the  father  of  Good  Sense;  that  Good 
Sense  fathered  Wit,  who  married  a  lady  of  collateral  line, 
called  Mirth ;  by  whom  she  had  issue,  Humor !  These 
logical  and  fanciful  definitions  are  more  genial  than  the 
definition  of  Hobbes.  He  attributed  all  laughter  to  a 
sense  of  exulting  superiority,  and  even  pleasure  in  the 
pain  of  another.  That  sort  of  laughter  may  do  for  fiends, 
not  for  men. 

Akin  to  this  is  the  definition,  that  humor  is  the  acme 
of  wit — the  point  of  the  sword  of  which  humor  is  the 
edge.  But  this  is  not  humor  as  we  understand  it.  True, 


l6  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

men  laugh  at  wit  as  well  as  at  humor.  So  they  do  at 
farce.  There  is  much  of  humor  in  both  wit  and  farce. 
They  are  divided  from  humor  by  no  very  clear  lines ; 
yet  humor  is  neither  wit  nor  farce.  Wit  cuts,  humor 
tickles ;  farce  grins,  humor  smiles.  Wit  is  polished  and 
sharp,  an  edge-tool  dangerous  to  handle  in  the  most 
practiced  hands.  When  Jerrold  heard  a  foolish  stranger 
say,  at  dinner,  "Sheep's  head  forever,"  he  exclaimed, 
"  What  egotism !"  This  was  a  witty  flash,  and  it  hurt. 
Humor  may  be  rusty,  though  never  dull.  While  wit  uses 
the  scalpel,  brings  blood,  divides  our  members,  cuts  out 
the  gangrene,  and  oftentimes  the  healthy  parts,  humor 
manipulates  gently,  or  gestures  with  the  playful  finger 
under  the  ribs  of  jollity,  never  drawing  blood,  but  pump- 
ing up  the  moisture  until  the  eyes  run  over  with  gladness. 
There  was  more  humor  in  Jerrold  than  wit,  when  he  ex- 
claimed, as  he  saw  a  tall  man  dance  with  a  short  lady, 
"  There's  a  mile  dancing  with  a  mile-stone  !"  Farce,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  the  caricature  of  humor.  It  shakes 
one  rather  roughly,  disturbs  the  gentler  currents,  until 
they  lose  their  lucid  mirthfulness  in  the  turbulent  rush 
of  broad  guffaw. 

Wit  is  not  always  a  desirable  quality.  The  worst  men 
often  use  it.  The  devil  generally  monopolizes  it.  John 
Randolph  had  it,  and  used  it.  Voltaire,  that  embodied 
epigram,  curt  and  unconscionable,  wrote  and  talked  in 
that  vein.  The  lustre  of  humor  never  tingled  in  his 
blood,  nor  shed  its  geniality  on  his  time.  He  became  a 
thin  stick  of  caustic,  withering  and  blackening  whatever 
he  touched.  Cervantes,  however,  wrote  in  a  different 
vein,  and  made  men  merry  at  the  incongruities  of  the 
Don  and  Sancho,  while  he  strove  to  better  human  nat- 
ure. His  humor  wears  the  sterling  stamp  of  humanity. 


HUMOR    IN    GENERAL.  17 

Genuine  humor  is  founded  on  a  deep,  thoughtful,  and 
manly  character.  It  would  make  men  laugh  more  hearti- 
ly, in  order  to  make  them  live  more  happily.  Wit  is  not 
careful  of  moral  consequences.  It  looks  only  to  its  own 
brilliant  flash.  It  admires  the  jewel  in  the  hilt,  and  the 
glitter  of  the  steel,  only  that  they  may  give  a  glory  to 
the  stroke.  Your  humorless  man,  however  witty,  is  not 
the  best  man.  Indeed,  the  Italians  have  the  same  word 
(tristezza)  for  melancholy  and  malignity.  Pope  was  witty, 
sad,  and  bad.  Humor,  if  true,  is  kind  and  reformatory. 
Thackeray  is  wit  all  compact ;  but,  unlike  Pope's  wit,  it 
is  relieved  by  lustrous  fringes  of  humor.  Dickens  is  hu- 
mor— radiant  and  benevolent. 

Blessed  be  that  man  or  that  nation,  which,  like  Ire- 
land, has  more  humor  than  wit ;  blessed  if  the  wit  be 
tempered  with  humor;  blessed  if  that  humor,  like  the 
juice  of  the  grape,  mingles  with  the  blood,  to  warm  the 
heart  and  generously  fructify  the  life ! 

The  Declaration  of  American  Independence  has  been 
called  a  self-evident  lie.  So  it  is,  if  it  is  meant  to  de- 
clare that  all  men  are  created  equal,  and  if  by  that  phrase 
is  meant  equality  in  the  endowments  of  mind.  No  ax- 
iom in  Euclid  is  so  self-evident  as  the  diversity  of  men  in 
the  quality  of  humor  alone.  But  whether  men  laugh,  or 
whether  they  forbear,  they  are  certainly  equal  in  their 
right  to  do  either.  May  not  Mr.  Glum,  who  wears  his 
suit  of  sombre,  and  draws  down  the  corners  of  his  mouth, 
and  opens  his  lachrymose  sluices,  and  laments,  like  a 
maiden  in  sackcloth,  "for  the  husband  of  her  youth,'7  as 
he  walks  through  this  vale  of  tears,  stand  upon  the  same 
equality  of  right  as  his  neighbor,  Mr.  Glee,  whose  words 
are  a  squad  of  rattling  jokes,  and  whose  mouth  is  ever  on 
the  stretch  with  smiles,  as  he  reads  in  every  thing  about 


1 8  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

him  glad  tidings  of  great  joy  ?  This  is  what  all  Decla- 
rations of  Independence  should  say.  It  is  not  true  that 
all  are  created  equal,  in  their  faculties,  whether  of  reason 
or  of  fun.  All  men  have  fun  in  their  nature  ;  some  more 
than  others,  too  much ;  some  less  than  others,  and  too 
little.  But  there  is  more  fun  in  our  sourish  people,  and 
more  sourness  in  our  pleasant  people,  than  we  are  apt  to 
suppose.  There  is  more  sugar  in  vinegar,  and  more  acid 
in  cider,  than  we  are  wont  to  believe.  Fermentation 
brings  them  out. 

Humor  differs  only  in  degree,  not  in  kind.  The  white 
man  and  black  man  both  have  fun  in  them,  just  as  the 
diamond  and  charcoal  are  of  the  same  material — car- 
bon. In  one  it  is  crystallized  and  concentrated ;  in  the 
other  it  is  diffusive  and  combustible.  Try  each  under 
the  blow-pipe  :  the  charcoal  will  glow  with  plentiful  scin- 
tillations long  before  the  diamond  releases  a  sparkle  of 
its  light. 

Efforts  have  been  made  in  France,  and  perhaps  in 
this  country,  to  transmute  charcoal  into  diamonds ;  but  I 
think  the  result  was  not  worth  the  pains  and  expense. 

There  are  some  phases  in  life  which  would  stir  humor 
in  every  man  of  sanity.  Not  that  every  one  would  laugh 
at  the  same  object,  but  every  one  would  laugh  at  some 
time  of  his  life  at  some  object.  What  would  be  a  ho- 
meopathic pellet  of  humor  to  one  would  furnish  another 
with  a  ton  of  fun,  and  vice  versa. 

Again,  the  humor  of  men  differs  at  different  hours  of 
the  day,  and  at  different  epochs  of  their  lives.  Men  are 
like  some  flowers.  The  common  pink  is  blue  early  in  the 
morning,  and  bright  pink  as  the  sun  advances.  Others 
are  white  in  the  morning,  pink  at  noon,  and  red  at  sunset, 
as  if  they  took  their  hues  from  the  sun  in  his  motions. 


HUMOR    IN    GENERAL.  19 

Moreover,  what  is  amusing  to  a  boy  is  puerile  to  a  man, 
and  what  is  painful  to  a  boy  may  be  pleasant  to  a  man. 
Who  does  not  remember  that  nothing  was  so  dreaded  by 
him  at  school  as  to  be  punished  by  sitting  between  two 
girls  ?  But  ah  !  the  force  of  habit  and  the  lapse  of  time  ! 
In  after-years  we  learn  to  submit  to  it  without  shedding 
a  tear ! 

These  varieties  must  be  so  from  the  variety  of  human 
vicissitude.  An  Englishman  laughs  at  the  untoward  ef- 
fort of  a  Frenchman  to  speak  English,  though  a  French- 
man would  not  laugh  at  John  Bull's  awkwardness  at 
French  ;  yet  Johnny  Crapaud  never  laughs  more  than 
at  an  Englishman's  surly  airs  of  assumed  consequence. 
An  African  bursts  into  irrepressible  glee  at  the  faintest 
approach  of  the  ludicrous,  as  if  his  mind  had  but  one 
side,  and  it  were  all  smitten  and  quivering  with  jollity ; 
yet  the  grave  Spaniard,  his  master,  composedly  smokes 
his  cigarette  and  twirls  his  mustache,  utterly  impervious 
to  the  stroke.  The  one,  like  jelly,  shakes  with  every  mo- 
tion around ;  the  other  is  frigid,  like  ice,  and  thaws  with 
a  cold  trickle  of  pleasure. 

This  diversity  in  humor  is  independent  of  education. 
It  is  not  superficial  either.  No  outside  show  can  hide 
it.  The  spiritual  tentacula  are  always  vital  and  vibrato- 
ry in  some  ;  ever  dormant,  if  not  dead,  in  others.  Some 
would  have  a  perpetual  jubilee  of  life;  their  muscles 
are  ever  ready  to  relax  at  the  absurdities  of  others ; 
they  have  amusing  scouts  and  sentries  ever  on  the  alert 
to  catch  fun  ;  while  others  are  so  indifferent  that  it  seems 
as  if  nature  were  shrouded  at  their  birth.  Observe  these 
two  men  on  the  cars.  They  buy  Harper's  Magazine. 
The  one  begins  with  the  Scientific  article,  the  other  begins 
at  the  "  Drawer  end,"  and  reads,  like  a  Hebrew,  backward. 


20  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

Shall  we  say,  then,  that  there  is  no  law  for  humor? 
Like  the  comet  or  the  cholera,  it  comes  —  God  only 
knows  whence  —  and  its  very  orbit  is  an  eccentricity. 
It  is  very  often  humor  only  because  it  is  exceptional. 
Queerness  is  the  badge  of  its  genuineness.  Undertake 
to  bring  it  into  orbits,  measure  it  by  geometry,  test  it  by 
equations,  appreciate  it  by  figures,  or  square  it  with  roots 
and  logic,  and  it  is  off!  Its  law  is  to  have  no  well-de- 
fined code,  and  all  attempts  to  philosophize  about  its  es- 
sence were  as  well  omitted.  We  know  that  it  is,  that 
it  is  different  in  different  minds ;  but  why,  it  is  beyond 
philosophy  to  tell. 

"  Fat  men  are  always  humorous,"  says  one  who  has  a 
theory,  and  Falstaff  is  introduced  as  the  illustration.  The 
analogies  of  nature  are  pressed  into  the  service  of  this 
oleaginous  theory.  Tom  Hood  is  quoted  where  he  says 
of  the  Australian  soil  that  "  it  is  so  fat  that,  tickle  it  with 
a  hoe,  and  it  will  laugh  with  a  harvest."  But  fun  and 
fat  do  not  necessarily  go  together.  Moisture  of  the  mus- 
cles and  layers  of  lard  have  no  more  to  do  with  humor 
than  meat  has  with  manhood.  Little  Dr.  Holmes  would 
show  you  that  by  one  turn  of  his  " tread-mill."  The 
beasts  which  feed  most  are  the  dullest.  We  must  reject, 
then,  the  adipose  theory.  If  we  are  to  judge  of  a  man's 
jollity  by  the  juiciness  of  his  body,  one  would  think  an 
American  to  be  the  j oiliest  of  mortals,  for  his  salivary 
glands  are  in  perpetual  flux. 

"  Laziness  begets  laughter,"  says  another  theorist.  In- 
dustrious people  are  too  earnest  and  serious  for  jokes. 
Leisure  leads  to  levity,  and  a  nation  that  is  always  bend- 
ing its  sinews  to  labor  can  not  unbend  them  to  laugh. 
This  is  measurably  true,  but  it  will  not  hold  as  a  gen- 
eral rule.  There  is  something  more  radical,  something 


HUMOR    IN    GENERAL.  21 

too  evanescent  for  apprehension,  which  determines  the 
humorous  temper  of  the  mind.  All  that  we  can  say  is, 
that  physical  influences  may,  and  do,  modify  its  develop- 
ment; but  the  germinal  principle  in  every  man  is  different. 
What  Mozart  said  of  himself  and  his  composing  will  il- 
lustrate what  is  meant:  "I  do  not  know  in  what  my  orig- 
inality consists.  Why  my  productions  take  that  particu- 
lar form  or  style  which  makes  them  Mozartish  is  proba- 
bly owing  to  the  same  cause  which  makes  my  nose  thus 
and  so — makes  it,  in  short,  Mozart's  nose. 

COSMOPOLITAN    HUMOR. 

But  as  the  people  of  one  country  may  be  alike  even  in 
their  differences  of  body  and  mind,  so  there  are  pecul- 
iarities in  the  humor  of  different  nations  as  marked  as 
the  geographical  peculiarities  of  their  country,  or  as  their 
food.  An  Englishman  loves  roast  beef;  a  German,  sour- 
krout ;  a  Patagonian,  red  mud ;  a  Kamtchatkan,  blub- 
ber ;  a  South  Sea  Islander,  cold  clergyman  ;  a  Peruvian 
Indian,  the  abominable  chica ;  and  the  American,  the 
weed !  Their  humorous  taste  is  not  less  diverse. 

To  the  eye  of  a  comprehensive  philosophy  every  thing 
is  laughable,  ludicrous,  or  ridiculous  except  that  which  is 
the  proper  attribute  and  investment  of  an  honest  heart 
and  a  pure  soul.  It  was  long  ago  said  by  Coleridge  that 
whatever  must  be  misrepresented  in  order  to  be  ridiculed 
is  not  ridiculed  in  fact,  but  the  thing  substituted  for  it. 
It  is  a  satire  on  something  else,  coupled  with  a  lie  on  the 
part  of  the  satirist.  If,  however,  the  lie  is  excessively 
great,  and  the  intent  to  deceive  is  playful  and  apparent, 
there  is  humor.  The  more  incredible  the  story,  the 
greater  the  fun.  There  may  be  an  honest  hyperbole  and 
a  sincere  mockery  of  heroism. 


22  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

Sir  Thomas  More,  in  his  ideal  commonwealth,  says 
that  when  the  foreign  embassadors  came  into  Utopia, 
and  found  that  their  gold,  gems,  and  finery  produced 
nothing  but  laughter,  they  were  amazed.  And  if  we  ever 
have  a  perfect  Utopian  society,  such  amazement  will  sa- 
lute every  such  mere  ostentatious  adornment.  I  never 
doubted  the  story  of  an  emperor  of  Japan  who  died  of 
immoderate  laughter  when  told  that  the  Americans  gov- 
erned themselves  without  a  king,  for,  at  that  time,  to  the 
Japanese  sense  of  humor  perhaps  no  more  comical  idea 
was  entertainable.  Indeed,  it  has  sometimes  become  far- 
cical to  elector  and  elected,  successful  and  defeated,  in 
this  country. 

It  is  alleged  that  some  nations  have  little  or  no  humor, 
as  the  Dutch  and  Scotch.  The  solidity  of  the  Dutch 
prevents  a  joke  from  getting  through  their  sevenfold  pile 
of  clothing  and  flesh.  As  prone  as  we  are  in  America 
to  divide  into  parties  and  sects  on  every  issue,  we  could 
never  have  divided  on  such  a  question  as  divided  Hol- 
land and  Zealand  for  two  centuries.  Their  whole  popula- 
tion were  arrayed  one  against  the  other  in  a  dispute  which 
arose  between  two  persons  at  a  feast.  The  Hocks  main- 
tained one  side,  the  Kaalbejanoos  the  other.  The  agita- 
tion grew  to  such  a  pitch  that  the  nobles  and  towns  took 
sides.  Each  were  ready  to  die  for  their  colors,  though 
the  world  was  ready  to  die  laughing  at  their  dullness : 
and  the  vexed  question  was,  whether  the  cod-fish  took 
the  hook,  or  the  hook  took  the  cod-fish. 

As  to  the  Scotch,  notwithstanding  the  humor  of  Burns, 
Smollett,  and  Scott,  yet  I  think  that  Sydney  Smith  was 
not  far  from  the  truth  when  he  said  that  it  required  a 
surgical  operation  to  get  a  joke  into  a  Scotch  understand- 
ing. Indeed,  the  same  idea  is  conveyed  in  some  of 
Black's  recent  Scottish  novels. 


HUMOR   IN    GENERAL.  23 

I  am  not,  however,  prepared  to  agree  that  their  only 
idea  of  humor  is  infinitely  distressing,  inasmuch  as  it  con- 
sists in  immoderately  laughing  at  stated,  or  what  may  be 
called  geometrical,  intervals.  If  the  Scotch  were  not  so 
"canny,"  they  might  be  more  comically  inclined.  It 
would  not  then  require  the  point  of  a  gimlet  to  reach  the 
objective  point  The  possession  of  keenness  and  intelli- 
gence, and  their  constant  use,  render  them  too  serious  to 
jest.  They  want  the  ardor  and  impulses  which  the  Irish 
have  in  abundance,  and  which  give  to  them  an  unresist- 
ing flow  of  mirth.  Ireland  makes  up  for  her  want  of 
practical  sagacity  by  the  wit  of  her  writers,  the  readiness 
of  her  repartees,  and  the  drollery  of  her  bulls.  Macaulay 
hit  the  white  when  he  said  that  Ireland  was  more  inter- 
esting than  prosperous. 

Art  is  cosmopolitan.  Painting,  sculpture,  and  elo- 
quence— all  forms  of  literature  and  expression — are  pos- 
sible to  each  nation.  There  is,  however,  something  about 
humor  unmistakably  national  as  well  as  periodical.  It  is 
said  that  no  one  but  an  Englishman — nay,  no  one  but 
Douglas  Jerrold — could  have  made  his  wit,  any  more  than 
any  one  else  but  Hood  could  have  made  Hood's  puns. 
"  It  is  better  to  be  witty  and  wise,  than  witty  and  other- 
wise," is  a  witticism  of  the  Anglo-Jerrold  type  ;  while  no 
one  but  Hood  could  have  fancied  the  Mrs.  R,  who  was 
^sb  very  deaf  that  she  might  have  worn  a  percussion-cap, 
and  been  knocked  on  the  head,  without  hearing  it  snap  ; 
and  whose  ear-trumpet  was  so  wonderful  that  she  heard 
from  her  husband  at  Botany  Bay  !  It  was  a  pleasing  ex- 
aggeration of  Charles  Lamb  to  pity  that  solemn  English 
ancestry  who  lived  before  candles  were  common,  and 
who,  when  a  joke  was  cracked  in  the  dark,  had  to  feel 
around  for  the  smile.  Could  any  one  but  an  American 


24  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

make  Shakspeare  a  "boss  poet?"  or  add  to  Thackeray's 
remark  about  the  baby  size  of  an  oyster — that  he  had 
eaten  one  so  large  that  it  took  three  men  to  swallow  it 
whole  ? 

The  national  paternity  of  these  bits  of  fun  is  as  clearly 
traceable  as  a  bull  would  be  to  Ireland.  "  Where,"  ex- 
claimed a  Hibernian,  "will  you  find  a  modern  building 
which  has  lasted  as  long  as  the  ancient  ones?"  "They 
never  could  be  forgotten,"  said  De  Quincey,  "  for  no  man 
had  ever  remembered  them."  This  was  the  logic  of  the 
intellectual  man,  incapable  of  making  the  Celtic  phrase. 

Humor  changes  with  different  eras.  It  is  as  impossi- 
ble to  make  Cervantes  and  "  Hudibras  "  popular  nowa- 
days as  to  make  Punch  American,  or  President  Lincoln 
amusing  to  a  Laplander.  Paris  laughs  perpetually  at 
Charivari;  but  no  cacographic  wit  could  make  Billings 
acceptable  to  a  cafe  chantant.  Artemus  Ward  pleased 
the  English;  but  is  he  not  exceptional?  The  native 
roughness  of  his  style  was  wonderfully  rounded  and  pol- 
ished by  a  sense  as  universal  as  that  of  Rabelais.  As  a 
Louisville  friend  has  said,  "  We  have  a  humor  racy  of 
the  soil,  quaint  and  characteristic,  very  primitive  and 
provincial,  and  more  independent  of  classic  inspiration 
and  foreign  models  than  any  of  our  contemporaries!" 
Quoting  Pope,  however,  he  still  confesses  that  humor  is 
like  our  watches  :  none  go  just  alike,  yet  each  believes 
his  own. 

Unmistakable  in  its  refinement  was  the  wit  of  Charles 
O'Conor  once,  in  answer  to  Judge  Henry  E.  Davies :  "It 
is  difficult,"  said  the  latter,  "to  do  justice  to  more  than 
one  side."  Response  from  the  American  Celt — to  wit : 
"  Your  infernal  ingenuity  makes  it  often  certain  that  you 
do  injustice  to  both  sides."  Sheridan's  memory  for  jests, 


HUMOR    IN    GENERAL.  25 

and  imagination  for  facts,  were  not  less  accurate  and 
acute,  as  tests  of  the  national  sheath  in  which  his  dirk 
of  wit  was  incased.  I  knew  a  Western  lawyer,  of  the 
Hardin-Corwin  type,  whose  fun  colors  Lethe  with  sun- 
shine. It  would  not  allow  him  even  to  indulge  in  the 
ordinary  fictions  of  an  ejectment.  It  was  not  John  Doe 
or  Richard  Roe,  but  Timothy  Peaceable,  on  the  demise 
of  his  client,  v.  Thomas  Troublesome,  tenant  in  posses- 
sion, on  whom  a  humorous  notice  was  served. 

HUMOROUS    NATIONAL    PECULIARITIES. 

The  mode  of  courting  and  marrying  is  as  various 
among  different  nations  as  it  is  humorous.  In  some 
countries  the  woman  has  a  sham -fight  before  she  suc- 
cumbs to  the  pertinacious  suitor.  In  ancient  Sparta  and 
Rome,  the  bride  had  to  be  lifted  across  the  marital  thresh- 
old. Among  the  people  of  Khoond,  in  India,  the  Kal- 
mucks, the  Kirghis,  and  the  Nogay  Tartars,  the  young 
women,  while  they  are  really  acquiescent,  demonstrate 
a  reluctance  to  be  won  by  no  means  debonair  or  coy. 
Among  the  Bedouins  of  Mount  Sinai,  the  girl  gets  ready 
for  a  battle  when  her  expected  bridegroom  approaches. 
She  will  fight  with  tooth  and  nail.  In  other  countries 
this  custom  is  more  serious,  and  occurs  after  marriage. 
In  Thibet,  the  bride  straddles  a  horse,  and  there  is  a  race 
for  the  altar,  or,  rather,  from  it.  The  best  man  wins. 

"  Was  ever  woman  in  this  humor  woo'd  ? 
Was  ever  woman  in  this  humor  won  ?" 

This  pleasing  recreation  is  called  kalbwi.  It  is  a  word 
in  several  tongues,  and  indicates  some  relation  to  maid- 
enhood or  affection.  The  Norsemen  and  Frisians  had 
a  similar  way  of  wooing  and  winning.  It  was  called 

2 


26  WHY    WE   LAUGH. 

quan-fang,  or  "woman-catching."  Many  humors,  in  ad- 
dressing the  elect,  or  proposing,  are  related  in  verse  and 
prose.  New  England,  in  the  last  century,  if  not  in  this, 
has  given  us  many  quaint,  if  not  funny,  descriptions. 
The  stage,  from  the  "  Elder  Brother  "  of  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher  down  to  the  last  novelty  of  the  "  Mighty  Dol- 
lar," presents  the  comic  embarrassments  of  courting; 
and  this  has  generally  consisted  not  so  much  in  endur- 
ance on  horseback,  or  main  strength,  as  in  absolute  awk- 
wardness, or  gaucherie. 

All  customs  that  are  novel  have  a  humorous  aspect. 
Not  only  is  the  susceptibility  to  humor  different  among 
different  nations,  but  the  humorous  objects  differ  by  rea- 
son of  different  customs  and  habits.  There  is  nothing 
very  laughable  to  us  in  the  manner  in  which  we  at  our 
hotels  and  railroad  de'pots  gobble  down  our  food ;  but 
even  an  Arab  or  a  Chinese  would  laugh  at  it,  if  we  did 
not.  Yet  it  is  ludicrous  to  us  to  see  an  Arab  lady  pick 
out  the  choice  tidbits  with  which  you  had  loaded  your 
plate,  or  roll  a  little  ball  of  hash  in  her  dainty  fingers, 
and,  by  way  of  especially  honoring  you,  plug  your  mouth 
with  it  unexpectedly ;  or  to  see  a  Chinese  with  his  chop- 
sticks load  himself  up  with  boiled  rice,  and  ram  it  down 
as  we  would  a  wad  in  a  gun !  It  is  said  that  the  ladies 
under  the  dominion  of  the  Grand  Lama,  when  good- 
looking,  disfigure  their  faces  to  preserve  them  from  van- 
ity. I  have  never  seen  that  recorded  of  our  ladies — 
Heaven  forbid !  The  idea,  however,  is  as  ludicrous  as 
the  Tartar  custom  of  pulling  a  man  by  the  ear  when  they 
want  him  to  drink,  and  keeping  pulling  till  he  opens  his 
mouth,  when  they  pour  down  the  liquor.  I  know  a  man 
whose  ears  do  not  require  to  be  pulled ! 

There  is  nothing  very  laughable  to  an  American  in  the 


HUMOR    IN    GENERAL.  27 

shaking  of  hands,  which  is  everywhere  practiced  in  our 
country ;  but  foreigners  do  find  in  it  much  amusement. 
Yet  nothing  will  be  more  ridiculous  to  us  than  the  saluta- 
tion in  Germany,  where  one  may  see  two  big,  burly,  hairy 
men  rush  to  each  other's  embrace  and  kiss  with  school- 
girl fervency.  The  people  of  Thibet  salute  by  lolling 
out  the  tongue  and  scratching  the  right  ear,  and  the 
Esquimaux  by  rubbing  their  noses  with  their  thumb  and 
describing  a  conic  section  in  the  air  with  their  fingers — 
a  custom  once  practiced  by  mischievous  urchins  in  our 
land,  but  not  exactly  as  a  salutatory  grace.  It  is  now, 
happily,  honored  in  the  breach.  In  Turkey  an  American 
traveling  with  his  unveiled  wife,  even  without  the  ap- 
pendages, so  usual  here,  of  six  small  children  and  seven 
large  trunks  and  bandboxes,  is  to  the  Turk  in  a  funny  pre- 
dicament. On  the  other  hand,  what  would  be  funny  with 
us,  among  the  Turks  is  quite  the  reverse.  An  American 
gives  us  an  instance  in  his  experience  in  Syria.  He  was 
about  to  mount  his  mule  amidst  a  crowd  of  Oriental  vis- 
itors, and  wished  to  give  them  an  exaggerated  idea  of 
American  agility.  He  jumped  a  little  too  far,  and  over- 
shot the  mark,  coming  down  on  the  other  side  like  a 
diver,  with  his  hands  and  nose  in  the  mud,  his  feet 
caught  in  the  saddle,  and  his  coat -skirts  cleverly  rolled 
over  his  head  to  screen  him  from  what  he  supposed  was 
a  laughing  crowd.  Yet  not  a  soul  smiled,  not  a  sound 
was  heard,  save  a  tender  grunt  of  sympathy  and  demure 
offers  of  aid.  Now,  a  Turk  in  America,  with  baggy 
breeches  and  turbaned  head,  taking  a  leap  over  a  mule 
in  the  streets  of  an  American  city,  and  getting  stuck  up- 
side down,  with  his  proboscis  in  a  rut  and  his  heels  in 
the  saddle,  would  be  saluted  with  something  more  than 
a  grunt  of  sympathy  and  demure  offers  of  aid.  We  have 


28  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

more  humor  than  dignity ;  the  Turks  more  dignity  than 
humor. 

How  different  the  effect  of  another  attempt  to  ride,  as 
described  by  Meacham,  of  Modoc  fame !  The  cayuse 
is  saddled,  and  held  by  a  long  rope.  A  lawyer  of  La 
Grange  mounts.  He  is  spurred.  The  first  touch  of 
the  rowel  into  the  pony's  side  starts  horse  and  rider  to 
the  end  of  the  rope.  The  horse  then  suddenly  stops. 
The  rider  suddenly  does  not.  Half  the  town  are  jubi- 
lantly interested  in  these  proceedings ;  and  all  the  action 
taken  by  the  lawyer  is  simply  vigorous  expression,  nei- 
ther Blackstonian  nor  Biblical,  but  "  detached  words  put 
strangely  in  shape  for  immediate  use."  Is  this  humor  of 
the  Pacific  peculiar?  Certainly,  it  is  not  tender  or  re- 
spectful. It  has  no  moral  phase.  It,  is  not  like  the 
sweet  truth  taught  by  Spenser  as  to  the  mud-bedraggled 
knight:  "Entire  affection  hateth  nicer  hands."  But  it 
feeds  a  voracious,  though  unreasoning,  person — whenever 
the  Anglo-American  is  hungry  for  fun.  And  is  he  not 
always  greedy  for  such  scenes  ?  When  the  great  canon 
of  wit,  Sydney  Smith,  pictures  to  us  an  analogous  scene, 
two  continents  laugh,  though  Asia  be  imperturbably  se- 
rene. He  fancied  a  corpulent  and  respectable  trades- 
man, decorated  with  the  .ostentatious  habiliment  of  a 
pea-green  coat,  sliding  down  gently  into  the  mud  !  He 
asks  :  "  Would  we  laugh  ?"  Yes.  Quid  rides  ?  Why 
such  barbarous  hilarity?  And  then  if  the  tradesman  fell 
into  a  violent  passion ;  and  if  he  abused  the  passers-by ; 
if  he  threatened  them — would  the  gayety  of  the  tunic,  the 
corpulency  of  the  tradesman,  his  respectability  and  harm- 
less anger,  and  the  rills  of  muddy  water  down  his  piteous 
face — would  these  restrain  the  boisterous  cachinnations 
of  the  multitude  ?  Our  great  comedian,  Burton,  answers 


HUMOR    IN   GENERAL.  29 

for  us  :  "  Certainly,  we  would  laugh."  The  ludicrous  sur- 
prise would  make  us  laugh;  because  the  effects  of  the 
accident  furnish  the  food  of  fun  for  the  famishing  soul. 

There  never  was  an  American  who  would  not  sacrifice 
his  courtesy  and  sympathy  to  his  fun.  He  must  have  it, 
however,  well  seasoned,  and  done  in  a  hurry,  and  its  pre- 
vailing characteristic  must  be  exaggeration.  This  was 
illustrated  even  in  the  inordinate  hopes  of  so  calm  andx 
sedate  a  statesman  as  Mr.  Seward,  as  to  the  closing-up 
of  our  late  civil  war  in  sixty  days.  That  was  the  huge 
joke  of  our  time.  There  was  a  court  in  General  Grant's 
army  which  sentenced  a  man  to  work  ten  years  on  Gen- 
eral Butler's  Dutch  Gap  Canal ;  and  it  was  generally 
said,  if  not  believed,  in  the  army  that  Palmer,  who  made 
the  patented  limbs,  had  purchased  two  thousand  acres 
of  Western  land,  and  planted  them  with  locust  and  ma- 
ple, with  a  view  to  economize  in  the  future'  in  his  manu- 
facture of  arms  and  legs. 

I  have  dwelt  thus  elaborately  on  the  philosophy  of 
abstract  humor,  and  the  peculiarly  humorous  qualities 
of  various  nations,  because  we  possess  the  exaggerations 
of  all  other  countries,  and  because  the  quality  of  our 
humor  is  the  result  of  our  mosaic  nationality.  And 
our  Anglo-Saxon  brothers  are  like  us.  When  repulsed 
at  the  Redan,  and  driven  by  the  Russian  bayonet  hel- 
ter-skelter, head  over  heels,  into  the  trenches  of  the 
Crimea,  they  are  reported  to  have  tumbled  in,  even  over 
the  mangled  and  the  dead,  amidst  roars  of  laughter. 

Nations,  then,  have  their  peculiar  humor,  differing  in 
degree.  Some  have  undertaken  to  say  just  what  quality 
pertains  to  the  humor  of  different  nations.  It  is  said 
that  French  humor  is  that  of  the  passions ;  English,  of 
the  interests  and  social  relations;  German,  of  the  abstract; 


30  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

Italian,  of  the  artistic  ;  Spanish,  of  the  romantic  and  fan- 
ciful;  Arabian,  of  the  moral;  and  American,  of  the  pure 
comical  intention — a  slashing  humor,  which  will  sacrifice 
feeling,  interest,  sociality,  philosophy,  romance,  art,  and 
morality  for  its  joke  ;  an  overriding,  towering  humor,  that 
will  one  clay  make  fun  of  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  not 
forgetting  itself.  But  these  distinctions  are  at  best  but 
arbitrary.  They  may  indicate  the  main  feature  of  the 
national  humor,  but  they  are  in  that  as  likely  to  be  wrong 
as  right,  inasmuch  as  these  distinctions  themselves  are 
made  by  men  of  different  susceptibilities.  The  French 
have  little  humor  either  in  their  literature  or  character. 
The  exaggerations  of  Rabelais,  the  comedy  of  Moliere, 
and  the  questionable  naivete  of  Montaigne  are  but  ex- 
ceptions. Wit  in  all  its  brilliancy  they  have.  Their 
dandyism,  finicalness,  and  fastidiousness  do  not  sym- 
pathize heartily  with  the  broad  irony,  full  feeling,  and 
strong  sense  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  humor.  Genteel 
comedy,  opera  bouffe,  and  farce  they  have;  but  where 
.in  all  France  are  the  bodies  and  souls  which  people  the 
papers  of  Pickwick  and  hover  around  the  canvas  of  Ho- 
garth? Their  humor,  like  their  soup,  is  made  out  of 
bones,  and  maigre  at  that.  It  lacks  fibre  and  body. 

Spanish  humor  has  long  since  been  obsolete.  Hidal- 
go pomposity  freezes  fun.  Once  or  twice  I  heard  Gen- 
eral Prim  bring  down  a  laugh  in  the  Spanish  Cortes  by 
quoting  a  saying  of  Sancho  Panza.  But  General  Butler's 
clash  and  roar  would  not  be  possible  in  such  a  body;  for 
humor  seldom  goes  in  state,  has  no  splendid  shows,  and 
boasts  no  grandee  pedigree.  It  is  one  of  the  preroga- 
tives of  the  fierce  democracy  and  victorious  republican, 
and  has  the  right  divine  for  its  sanction.  It  disdains 
hauteur  and  pride.  The  American  finds  in  the  preten- 


HUMOR   IN   GENERAL.  31 

sions  of  others,  even  among  themselves,  "a  thing  for 
laughter,  leers,  fleers,  and  jeers."  As  sings  Saxe,  our 
most  classical  wag : 

"  Depend  upon  it,  my  snobbish  friend, 
Your  family  thread  you  can't  ascend, 
Without  good  reason  to  apprehend 
You  may  find  it  waxed  at  the  further  end 

By  some  plebeian  vocation  ; 
Or,  worse  than  that,  your  boasted  line 
May  end  in  a  loop  of  stronger  twine 

That  plagued  some  worthy  relation." 

What  a  reservoir  of  humor,  therefore,  to  an  American, 
should  "  Don  Quixote  "  be,  which  takes  off  and  down  the 
grandiose  chivalric  hidalgo !  Is  it  not  wonderful  that  it 
is  not  more  read  in  this  country  ?  It  is  the  very  essence 
of  exaggeration.  Germany,  in  her  paintings,  her  poetry, 
her  prose,  her  social  gatherings,  her  vine-feasts,  and  holi- 
days— how  rich  and  varied  is  her  humor!  Whether  it 
be  Peter  Schlemihl,  whose  shadow  froze  to  an  iceberg,  or 
the  metamorphoses  of  Mephistopheles,  Germany  is  ever 
facetious  and  riant.  With  her,  Mischief  himself  is  wel- 
come, if  he  play  Momus.  There  is  no  smack  of  fun  in 
all  Fatherland  that  has  not  some  spice  of  deviltry  in  its 
cup.  Even  the  "  mysteries "  of  the  Middle  Ages  were 
possessed  of  a  devil. 

Italy  has  had  little  humor,  and  what  she  has  is  rather 
buffoonery,  the  product  of  a  soil  just  reblooming  with  its 
elder  culture.  Humor  likes  free  soil,  full  play,  no  formal- 
ity, no  starch  and  buckram.  Hence  it  has  always,  from 
the  time  of  Shakspeare  and  his  Dogberry  to  the  time  of 
Hood  and  his  Kilmansegg,  thriven  on  English  soil,  and, 
a  fortiori,  will  thrive  on  American  soil  still  more  exuber- 
antly, where  all  the  several  humors  of  the  nations  com- 


32  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

mingle  in  the  oddest  unreserve,  and  with  the  most  im- 
perturbable extravagance. 

"The  prosperity  of  a  jest  lies  in  the  ear  of  him  that 
hears  it,"  said  the  master  of  wit.  The  ear  may  be  a 
large  one.  It  may  be  as  comprehensive  as  that  of  an 
Illinois  prairie  ;  but  the  crop  must  be  sown  in  the  ground, 
and  not  remain  in  the  hand  of  the  sower.  I  have  a  pict- 
ure in  my  house.  It  is  Moliere  reading  his  "Tartuffe" 
to  his  servant.  The  artist  is  an  Italian,  Gatti  j  but  the 
idea  is  universal.  The  playwright  tests  his  humor,  as 
all  spoken  humor  must  be  tested.  Its  "  prosperity  "  was 
in  the  mirthful  sense  of  his  elderly  servant.  Please  ob- 
serve this  picture  !  Moliere's  right  hand  clasps  the  man- 
uscript. His  left  points  downward,  with  an  index-finger 
(whose  neighbor  wears  a  gem)  to  an  unmistakable  class 
—  the  targets  of  his  satiric  fancy.  A  full  brown  wig 
curls  down  his  shoulders,  and  makes  him  seem  like  a 
comic  Blackstone.  His  abundant  neckerchiefs,  frilled 
and  ruffed,  are  set  within  his  velvety,  puffy,  pocketed 
doublet ;  while  he  stands  in  the  light  from  the  casement, 
in  front  of  his  damask  chair,  and  under  the  damask 
hangings  ;  and  she,  almost  in  Quaker  garb,  leans  for- 
ward, with  knit  brow,  one  half  of  her  mouth  in  laugh, 
the  other  in  sedate  criticism  ;  a  red  cap  surmounting 
her  gray  hair,  and  the  bravery  of  it  all  in  the  intense 
critical  and  comic  slyness  which  peeps  out  of  her  blue 
eye.  There  is  no  boisterous  laugh,  no  sardonic  con- 
vulsion, no  involuntary  spasm,  but  the  pure,  intelligent, 
comic  intention,  asquint  and  radiant  in  her  face  which 
copies  his ;  while  around  the  author  lies,  in  the  confusion 
of  successful  production,  the  "  prosperity  "  which  comes 
of  true  humor  in  the  ear  of  the  hearer.  There  is  a  page 
of  abandoned  manuscript  upon  every  touch  of  tracery  on 


HUMOR    IN    GENERAL.  33 

the  rug  on  which  he  stands ;  and  a  whole  library  of  fun, 
still  unbound  and  unexpressed,  in  the  hand,  gesture,  mien, 
costume,  and  imagery  of  the  great  comic  dramatist  of  his 
time,  Jean  Baptiste  Poquelin,  ever  known  as  Molicre. 
Two  hundred  years  and  more  have  gone  since  he  was 
saluted,  for  his  precieuses  ridicules,  with  the  cry  of  "  Cou- 
rage !  voila  la  vraie  comedie  /"  But  the  public  and  pos- 
terity have  confirmed  the  judgment,  and  no  one  now 
studies  Plautus  and  Terence,  but  the  ear  of  the  world, 
for  the  prosperity  of  true  humor.  What,  then,  has  the 
American  ear  to  hear  ? 

o* 


34  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 


II. 

AMERICAN  HUMOR  IN  PARTICULAR. 

"  Those  confused  seeds  which  were  imposed  upon  Psyche  as  an 
incessant  labor  to  cull  out  and  sort  asunder,  were  not  more  inter- 
mixed."— JOHN  MILTON. 

WHAT,  then,  is  the  quality  of  American  humor  ?  How 
much  of  the  electric  talent  do  we  possess  ? 

As  to  the  last  inquiry,  there  are  many  reasons  which 
might  be  urged,  a  priori,  why  we  should  be  wanting  in 
its  finer  development.  We  are  too  engrossed  in  practical 
matters,  our  eyes  too  much  bent  on  the  golden  pave- 
ment, to  cultivate  that  hilarious  spirit  which  is  the  off- 
spring of  leisure,  laziness,  fatness,  freedom,  carelessness, 
and  unrestraint.  We  shall  see  by- and -by  how  much 
force  there  is  in  this  antecedent  probability  against  our 
\  humor. 

yl  It  is  urged  as  a  reason  against  our  having  the  humor- 
ous gift  that,  as  humor  flows  out  of  peculiarities  of  charac- 
ter and  conduct,  we  can  not  have  a  national  humor  orig- 
inal and  unique  because  of  our  cosmopolitanism ;  that  if 
we  have  any  humor,  it  will  so  partake  of  the  quality  of 
every  other  people  as  to  be  wanting  in  a  distinct  Ameri- 
can quality. 

This  objection  is  worth  examining.  Let  me  give  it 
the  strongest  statement.  In  illustration  of  it,  the  object- 
or points  to  the  richness  of  English  humor ;  and  tri- 
umphantly asks,  "  Is  it  not  due  as  much,  if  not  more,  to 


AMERICAN    HUMOR    IN    PARTICULAR.  35 

English  isolation  than  to  the  unequalness  of  the  climate  ? 
Do  not  England's  insular  position  and  crabbed  exclu- 
siveness  give  her  a  mold  of  her  own,  so  that  an  English- 
man can  never  be  mistaken  for  any  one  else,  either  in  a 
play,  at  home,  or  abroad?  Is  not  this,  in  connection 
with  the  changes  of  English  climate,  that  which  makes 
the  Englishman  such  an  incarnate  incongruity?  and  is 
not  this  near  a  definition  of  humor?  How,  then,  can 
America,  with  her  roving  disposition,  her  open  ports,  and 
her  armies  of  immigration,  ever  attain  that  distinct  form 
of  manners  which  England  in  her  isolation  has  at- 
tained ?" 

Let  us  weigh  this  statement.  It  is  true  that  no  people 
were  ever  so  composite  as  ours.  On  the  Atlantic  side 
the  nations  of  all  Europe  have  a  theatre  for  the  blend- 
ing of  their  divers  tempers,  while  on  the  Pacific  side 
the  Chinaman  and  Japanese,  with  their  pig -tails  and 
shorn  crowns,  lean  forward  to  blend  their  laughterless 
physiognomy  with  the  motley  groups  which  people  the 
placers,  do  the  cooking  and  washing,  and  build  the  rail- 
roads of  the  Occident.  It  was  only  the  other  evening  the 
writer  addressed  a  meeting  in  New  York  City.  It  was 
composed  of  Hungarian  Hebrews.  They  drank  lager, 
while  the  band  played  "The  Mulligan  Guards."  It  was 
more  than  E  pluribus  bragh,  Erin  go  unum  ! 

Our  institutions  have  made  us  the  most  affiliative  peo- 
ple known  to  history.  It  may  be  that,  in  grafting  so 
many  and  divers  shoots  upon  our  national  stock,  we  are 
overburdening  our  productive  energy,  and  neutralizing 
our  native  temper  and  tone.  But  I  trust  not.  The  pre- 
dominant genius  is  American  !  Like  the  genius  of  the 
Grecian  artist,  it  is  eclectic,  for  out  of  many  models  it 
will  educe  the  highest  type,  from  divers  discordances  it 


36  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

will  develop  a  comely  concordance.  Bancroft  has  said 
that  our  land  was  not  more  the  recipient  of  the  men  of 
all  countries  than  of  their  ideas.  Annihilate  the  past  of 
any  one  leading  nation  of  the  world,  and  our  destiny 
would  have  been  changed.  Italy  and  Spain,  in  the  per- 
sons of  Isabella  and  Columbus,  joined  together  for  the 
great  discovery  that  opened  it  for  emigration  and  com- 
merce ;  France  contributed  to  its  independence ;  the 
search  for  the  origin  of  the  language  we  speak  carries  us 
to  India  ;  our  religions  are  from  Palestine  ;  of  the  hymns 
sung  in  our  churches,  some  were  first  heard  in  Italy,  some 
in  the  deserts  of  Arabia,  some  on  the  banks  of  the  Eu- 
phrates;  our  arts  come  from  Greece,  our  jurisprudence 
from  Rome,  our  maritime  code  from  Russia ;  England 
taught  us  the  s7ystem  of  common  law,  and  Ireland  the 
heart  to  love  and  defend  the  constitution  of  our  federa- 
tion ;  the  noble  republic  of  the  United  Provinces  be- 
queathed to  us  the  prolific  principle  of  federal  union. 
Our  country  stands,  therefore,  more  than  any  other,  as 
the  realization  of  the  unity  of  the  race.  It  may  be  asked, 
"Where,  then,  in  all  this  Babel  of  tongues,  jangle  of  ideas, 
crosses  of  race,  and  confusion  of  systems,  is  there  any 
individual  Americanism  in  our  temper,  tone,  or  humor?" 
Where,  indeed,  I  answer,  if  not  in  the  blending  of  the 
many -tinted  phases  of  the  varied  civilizations  which 
time  and  sacrifices  have  furnished  for  our  own  exquisite 
mosaic  ?  It  is  this  absorption  of  characteristics  of  every 
clime  and  time  which  makes  our  society  the  most  in- 
congruous, grotesque,  odd,  angular,  and  outre,  ever  yet 
known  in  history.  Instead  of  destroying  our  peculiar 
humor,  this  medley  has  turned  us  from  the  old  English 
channel,  where  we  had  ever  been  copyists,  into  new  chan- 
nels of  our  own.  Jefferson,  in  his  Rip  Van  Winkle,  could 


AMERICAN    HUMOR    IN    PARTICULAR.  37 

never  have  played  his  part  so  well  had  he  not  combined 
the  thin,  jolly  American  with  the  Dutchman.  Instead  of 
this  unexclusiveness  breaking  down  our  humor,  it  is  a 
resource  for  it  as  inexhaustible  as  it  is  varied.  If  the 
power  of  man  consists  in  the  multitude  of  his  affinities, 
in  the  fact  that  his  life  is  intertwined  more  with  his  fel- 
lows of  every  caste,  degree,  and  nation — if  he  thus  be- 
comes a  more  complete  compend  of  all  time,  with  all  its 
tastes,  affections,  whims,  and  humors — then  the  American 
man  ought  to  be  more  potent  in  his  individuality  than 
any  other.  From  his  mind,  as  from  the  Forum  of  an- 
cient Rome,  proceed  the  great  avenues  north,  south,  east, 
and  west,  to  the  heart  of  every  other  people,  multiply- 
ing his  relations,  and  drawing  to  itself  all  the  resources 
which  human  nature  can  furnish.  Out  of  these  deriva- 
tives from  the  Old  World  we  have  our  originals.  The 
greater  the  variety  of  our  life,  the  more  golden  are  the 
veins  of  that  humor  which  is  so  loud,  large,  uproarious, 
and  rollicking  in  exaggerations. 

PROSPERITY,  LIBERTY,  AND   HUMOR. 

There  are  elements  in  our  country  from  which,  a  priori, 
we  may  infer  that  we  shall  have  abundant  harvests  of 
humor,  if  we  have  them  not  already.  These  elements  are 
our  Plenty  and  Freedom.  The  same  reasons  given  by 
an  old  English  writer  for  the  variety  of  the  vein  in  En- 
gland may  be  applied  to  America  with  even  more  fitness. 
I  extract  their  essence  thus :  i.  The  native  plenty  of  the 
soil :  plenty  begets  wantonness  and  pride ;  wantonness 
is  apt  to  invent,  and  pride  scorns  to  imitate.  2.  Easy 
government,  and  liberty  of  professing  opinions :  liberty 
with  plenty  begets  stomach  and  heart,  and  stomach  will 
not  be  restrained.  Thus  we  come  to  have  more  that  ap- 


3  8  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

pear  what  they  are.  We  have  more  humor,  because  ev- 
ery man  follows  his  own  bent,  and  takes  both  pleasure 
and  pride  in  showing  it. 

This  philosophy  will  hold  everywhere.  Plenty,  unless 
gorged  to  dyspepsia — and  even  then  it  becomes  ludicrous 
— is  the  very  father  of  fun.  Whether  plenty  has  the  rib- 
less  side  or  the  thin  anatomy,  laughter  lives  in  its  com- 
pany. Does  not  a  man  "  well-to-do  "  feel  good  ?  Is  he 
not  more  genial  ?  Can  he  not  laugh  more  heartily,  invent 
merrier  thoughts  ?  And  will  he  not,  if  unconstrained  by 
a  tyrannic  government,  let  out  more  of  the  native  pecul- 
iarities of  his  disposition  ?  His  independence  precludes 
imitation,  and  disdains  obedience.  He  is  more  of  an 
individual  sovereign,  and  in  the  wrestling  of  life  he  will 
show  more  muscle  and' point.  Nast's  caricatures  furnish 
plentiful  illustrations,  and  the  newspapers,  in  both  picture 
and  type,  are  not  less  evidences  of  our  unlicensed  print- 
ing than  of  our  love  of  the  most  grotesque  fun.  If  you 
would  deaden  humor,  put  your  government  to  work  with 
the  Procrustean  bed,  and  make  men  all  of  a  length,  and 
you  have  machines,  not  men,  and  no  humor. 

There  is  but  one  exception  to  the  rule,  and  that  is 
the  Irish.  Rich  or  poor,  full  or  pinched,  they  must  have 
their  jollity.  And  yet  Disraeli  called  them  a  melancholy 
people  !  Well  do  I  remember  the  sparkles,  of  merriment 
let  off  by  the  little  urchins  who  ran  after  the  jaunting- 
car  to  Donnybrook  Fair.  They  begged,  to  be  sure,  and 
looked  wretched,  but  they  won  more  pennies  by  their  hu- 
mor than  by  their  looks.  All  through  Ireland,  even  in 
their  extremities  of  want,  the  goodness  of  Nature  seems 
to  have  provided  them  with  cheer  as  an  offset  to  their 
hard  condition.  They  do  not  need  their  fun  so  much  in 
this  land  of  plenty,  but  it  does  not  leave  them  here. 


AMERICAN    HUMOR    IN    PARTICULAR.  39 

Our  people  are  on  a  full  rush  for  plenty,  but  they  have 
their  fun  as  they  go.  The  very  rush  makes  merriment. 
The  excitement  throws  off  electric  sparks.  The  friction 
makes  music.  We  have  been  waxing  too  rich  and  fat 
without  fair  distribution.  Since  A.D.  1800,  the  rich  are 
ten  times  richer,  and  the  poor  ten  times  poorer.  Our 
cities  show  it  more  than  the  country.  At  least,  we  are 
growing  rich  in  spots.  Our  watering-places,  our  hotels, 
our  theatres,  our  churches,  our  lectures,  our  literature, 
the  amenities  and  luxuries  of  life,  all  float  on  this  golden 
Pactolus ;  and  along  with  them  are  the  laughing  genii 
who  puncture  the  follies  and  hold  the  mirror  up  to  the 
oddities  and  fooleries  that  bubble  and  effervesce  in  the 
wake  of  this  very  successful  life.  Rev.  Cream  Cheese 
preaches  quite  recherche,  and  fashionable  religion  with 
lavendered  mouchoir,  wipes  away  the  tears  that  never 
flow ;  but  Curtis,  the  rogue,  sits  demurely  by,  and  Mrs. 
Potiphar  goes  to  his  canvas,  illustrated  by  his  facile  hu- 
mor. Parvenu  pride  turns  up  its  aristocratic  nose  at 
plebeian  vocations  ;  but  Saxe,  the  wag,  is  sliding  the 
genealogical  line  of  the  M'Brides  through  his  fingers,  and 
holds  up  the  waxed  end  with  a  chuckle.  Sanctimoni- 
ous humanity  becomes  a  Federal  Senator.  His  name 
is  Dillworthy.  He  promises  his  constituency  immense 
material  advantages  on  the  philanthropic  basis  ;  while 
his  friend  and  admirer,  Colonel  Mulberry  Sellers,  warm 
and  genial,  eloquent  and  sanguine,  impecunious  in  purse 
but  a  millionaire  in  promises,  rallies  to  the  theatre  thou- 
sands nightly  to  roar  in  laughter  over  the  exaggeration 
of  an  extravagant  feature  in  our  American  society.  The 
genius  of  Mark  Twain  in  facile  caricature  proves  that 
there  are  not  only  "millions"  in  a  play,  but  that  millions 
will  laugh  it  into  every  man's  conversation  and  approval. 


40  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

It  is  not  limited  to  the  melodrama.  Our  extravagance 
as  to  the  opera  bouffe,  and  even  as  to  the  regular  opera, 
outdoes  France  or  Italy.  How  often  do  we  see  our 
fashionable  people,  themselves  the  result  of  our  extrav- 
agant tastes  and  social  ambitions,  and,  utterly  innocent 
of  Italian  or  French,  affect  to  die  away  in  its  rich  and 
fluent  cadences,  or  shiver  with  excitement  at  the  frenzy 
of  a  Rachel  or  a  Ristori !  But  the  lorgnette  of  humor 
is  leveled  at  them,  and  their  photographs  are  soon 
caught  by  the  sunbeams  of  some  satiric  fancy. 

OUR   HUMOROUS   WRITERS. 

There  is  much  of  Franklin's  shrewd,  practical  humor 
disguised  under  the  mask  of  Josh  Billings's  sayings.  With 
a  Puritan  face  all  severe  and  sour ;  without  a  hearty  open 
laugh  to  welcome  the  coming  or  speed  the  parting  joke ; 
with  nothing  but  an  odd  pucker  of  the  mouth,  and  an 
elfish  twinkle  of  the  eye ;  with  an  inward  chuckle  which 
has  no  outward  sign — Billings  (aside  from  the  small  fun 
of  bad  orthography)  hits  the  target  of  humor  in  the  centre 
when  he  says  that  with  some  people  who  brag  of  ances- 
try, their  great  trouble  is  their  great  descent;  or  when  he 
thanks  God  for  allowing  fools  to  live,  that  wise  men  may 
get  a  living  out  of  them  ;  when  he  says  that  wealth  won't 
make  a  man  virtuous,  but  that  there  ain't  any  body  who 
wants  to  be  poor  just  for  the  purpose  of  being  good; 
when  he  says  that  if  a  fellow  gets  to  going  down  hill, 
it  seems  as  if  every  thing  were  greased  for  the  occasion  ; 
or  when  he  gives  us  his  way  of  keeping  a  mule  in  a  past- 
ure, by  turning  it  into  a  meadow  adjacent  and  letting  it 
jump  out ;  or  when  he  has  known  mules,  like  men,  keep 
good  for  six  months  just  to  get  a  good  kick  at  somebody 
— he  makes  a  species  of  drollery  which  even  our  English 


AMERICAN    HUMOR    IN    PARTICULAR.  41 

reviewers  have  begun  to  appreciate,  and  which  does  not 
require  the  drawl  of  bad  grammar  and  worse  spelling.  I 
once  had  occasion,  in  a  deliberative  body,  to  use  Bil- 
lings's  illustration  that  one  hornet,  if  he  felt  well,  could 
break  up  a  camp-meeting.  The  effect  amazed  me.  The 
application  was  made;  and  Billings  himself  afterward 
said,  "  My  name  will  go  down  to  the  fewter  coupled  with 
the  hornet ;  we  will  be  twins  in  posterity."  The  descrip- 
tion of  the  nature  of  the  insect,  especially  the  use  it 
makes  of  its  "  business  end,"  of  the  way  it  avoids  the 
thousand  attempts  to  "  shoo "  it  and  to  fight  it,  and  the 
consequent  consternation  of  a  pious  body,  has  in  it  exag- 
geration of  the  raciest  kind. 

But  this  kind  of  humor,  like  that  of  Nasby,  does  not 
rise  to  the  dignity  of  literature.  It  can  not  compare,  of 
course,  with  Washington  Irving,  who,  in  his  Knickerbocker 
and  other  works,  has  given  us  the  very  choicest  brand, 
all  sparkling  and  stimulating.  But  Irving  is  too  refined, 
sweet,  and  shy  for  general  appreciation.  Besides,  Irving 
is  not  an  American  humorist.  He  is  more  English  than 
American,  more  cosmopolitan  than  either.  Paulding, 
Hawthorne — alas  for  our  humorous  literature !  Oh  for 
one  man  for  America  what  Richter  is  to  Germany,  or 
Dickens  is  to  England  ! 

Mrs.  Stowe  has  plenty  of  the  genuine  indigenous  hu- 
mor in  her  "  Uncle  Tom."  But  can  there  be  a  more 
gentle  and  genuine  humor  than  that  of  Mrs.  Sparrow- 
grass  and  her  "  cozzens  ?" 

Our  humorous  writers,  with  a  few  exceptions,  are  not 
strictly  national.  Even  Franklin,  our  first,  best  humor- 
ist, stifled  his  humor  in  the  Addisonian  style.  His  was 
too  earnest  a  character  to  make  the  humorous  trait  very 
prominent;  but  his  sly,  shining  threads  of  observation,  in- 


42  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

tertwisted  into  the  strong  strand  of  his  practical  sense, 
have  had  their  effect  on  the  older  men  of  this  generation. 

Sam  Slick  and  Jack  Downing — they  are  the  caricature 
of  caricatures.  We  have  had  printed  at  Philadelphia  a 
series  of  works  on  American  humor,  giving  graphic  pict- 
ures of  the  pioneer  times  of  the  South,  South-west,  and 
West,  which,  if  purged  of  their  grossness,  and  artistically 
inwoven  with  some  genial  purpose,  would  better  represent 
our  national  idiosyncrasies,  with  their  reckless  heroism, 
quaint  extravagances,  and  novel  parlance,  than  any  other 
portion  of  our  literature. 

But,  after  all,  the  American  humor  does  not  reside  alto- 
gether in  books.  It  is  to  be  found  in  our  newspapers, 
with  their  spicy  dialogues,  practical  jokes,  Mrs.  Parting- 
tonisms,  Artemus  Wards,  Josh  Billingses,  Nasbys,  Max 
Adelers,  Twains,  Bret  Hartes,  and  the  infinity  of  little 
jets  of  fun  on  the  outside,  and  measureless  ridicule  and 
cuts  on  the  inside,  local  items,  advertisements,  and  all. 

There  is  no  room  in  this  volume  to  run  the  round  of 
our  newspaper  humorists.  One  might  begin  with  Doe- 
sticks,  quote  Breitmann's  Anglo-German  verses,  turn  over 
the  versatilities  of  Mr.  Newell,  chuckle  at  Max  Adeler's 
demure  extravaganzas,  Apoth.  E.  Gary's  humorous  nos- 
trums, and  the  dry  jocoseness  of  the  Danbury  News,  roar 
with  Bonn  Piatt  till  the  Capitol  itself  echoed  the  "  cave 
of  the  winds,"  or  shake  with  the  "  Fat  Contributor"  until 
the  lean  earth  was  larded,  and  just  begin  to  have  an  ap- 
preciation of  the  inimitably  broad  hyperbole  which  marks 
our  ephemeral  newspaper  fun. 

The  Athenians  frequented  the  theatre  of  Bacchus  to 
hear  a  play  of  Aristophanes,  wherein  the  spite  and  fun 
of  the  day  were  concentrated ;  the  Romans  gathered  at 
the  Baths  of  Caracalla  to  laugh  over  the  gossip  and  hu- 


AMERICAN    HUMOR    IN    PARTICULAR.  43 

mor  of  the  city.  What  theatre  and  bath  were  to  Athens 
and  Rome,  the  journal  is  to  the  American.  In  our  five 
thousand  American  journals,  sending  out  a  billion  of 
copies  per  annum,  the  American  finds  a  mirror  of  his 
own  nature,  reflecting  his  opinions  and  feelings,  and 
those  distorted  and  grotesque  images  and  scenes  which 
are  the  life  of  American  humor. 

OUR    HUMOROUS   SPEAKERS. 

All  of  our  prominent  men — John  P.  Hale,  ever  on  a 
smile  with  his  waggery ;  General  Houston,  with  his  ec- 
centricity ;  John  Van  Buren,  with  his  playful  sarcasm ; 
Daniel  S.  Dickinson,  with  his  trenchant,  Scriptural,  prac- 
tical, ironical  hits ;  Thomas  Corwin,  with  his  inimitable 
drollery;  Thaddeus  Stevens,  with  his  dry  and  biting  sar- 
casm ;  General  Nye,  with  his  full  exchequer  of  anecdote  ; 
and  Proctor  Knott,  with  his  elaborate  Dulifthiana — had 
the  charm  which  drew  the  crowd,  and  held  men  while 
they  talked.  The  masses  leap  to  hear  a  man  of  humor 
like  Butler,  even  when  his  speeches  are  full  charged  with 
diabolism,  or  to  hear  a  minister  like  Beecher,  and  even 
from  the  pulpit  await  the  inevitable  laugh !  It  is  all  the 
better  if  it  have  point ;  but  give  the  laugh  without  point, 
rather  than  no  laugh  at  all.  There  is  no  ruse  so  com- 
mon as  this,  at  least  in  the  West— as  the  argument um  ad 
risum.  Turn  the  laugh  on  your  opponent,  Sir  Sophist, 
and  though  he  pile  Pelion  on  Ossa  of  argument,  you 
have  him  down  !  This  may  seem  more  creditable  to  our 
humor  than  to  our  sense.  But  let  us  see.  One  of  the 
utilities  of  humor  is  the  use  made  of  it  by  our  writers 
and  speakers  in  what  is  called  the  reductio  ad  absurdum. 
This  use  may  be  abused  ;  but  we  can  not  spare  it,  for  all 
that,  so  long  as  we  have  empirics  in  medicine,  pettifog- 


44  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

gers  in  law,  demagogues  in  politics,  pretenders  in  relig- 
ion, and  snobs  in  society.  Our  institutions  are  favorable 
to  the  growth  of  mushrooms.  They  grow  up  in  a  night 
around  the  roots  of  our  wide  -  spreading  freedom.  We 
have  theorists  without  sagacity,  philanthropists  without 
morality,  and  practical  men  without  sentiment.  We  have 
men  who  pass  current  for  eagles,  which  a  little  touch  from 
the  point  of  humor  reduces  to  tomtits.  We  have  vaunting 
patriots  whose  patriotism,  as  of  old,  is  scoundrelism — men 
who  live,  ay,  who  thrive,  on  the  burning  indignation  that 
is  poured  upon  them.  Such  men  wither,  under  ridicule, 
to  their  proper  dimensions.  Ridicule  never  hurts  an 
honest  man.  He  alone  can  join  in  the  laugh  against 
himself.  It  is  the  Ithuriel  spear,  however,  which  makes 
the  devil  show  himself  as  he  is.  Ridicule  may  not  be  a 
good  test  of  truth,  as  Shaftesbury  maintained,  but  it  is 
not  a  bad  test  of  falsehood.  An  old  English  poet  says  : 

"  For  he  who  does  not  tremble  at  the  sword, 
Who  quails  not  with  his  head  upon  the  block, 
Turn  but  a  jest  against  him,  loses  heart  : 
The  shafts  of  wit  slip  through  the  stoutest  mail ; 
There  is  no  man  alive  who  can  live  down 
The  unextinguishable  laughter  of  mankind." 

We  are  apt  to  condemn  the  writer  or  speaker  who  ap- 
plies the  touch-stone  of  absurdity  to  the  shams  and  rascal- 
ity of  the  day,  even  while  we  laugh  with  him.  But  Attic 
salt  is  as  useful  as  Kanawha.  The  one  preserves  mess 
pork,  the  other  moral  purity.  Even  when  our  humor  is 
misapplied,  it  is  the  smoke  evidencing  the  fire  of  fun 
which  lies  beneath  the  crust  of  our  society.  Hence  the 
success  of  Nast  and  others  with  their  terrible  caricatures. 

The  general  sources  of  our  humor  are  those  from  which 
all  people  draw,  which  would  make  a  Laplander  laugh  as 


AMERICAN    HUMOR    IN    PARTICULAR.  45 

well  as  an  American.  These  have  been  frequently  cat- 
alogued. They  are  a  portion  of  the  categories  to  which 
reference  has  been  made.  Let  us  reproduce  a  few.  The 
balking  of  our  hopes  in  trifling  matters  makes  us  smile. 
An  unlooked-for  accident  that  is  absurd,  as  when  a  dandy 
slips  up  on  an  icy  pavement,  makes  us  laugh.  We  laugh 
at  that  which  is  against  custom,  as  at  a  man  in  a  bonnet. 
We  laugh  at  the  weaknesses  of  others,  as  at  a  politician 
who  brags  much  and  polls  a  small  vote.  We  laugh  at 
amateur  farmers  who  fail.  We  laugh  at  incongruities, 
as  when  we  see  a  little  man  walking  arm-in-arm  with  a 
giant ;  we  laugh  more  if  the  little  man  marches  with  a 
big  bass  drum  and  the  big  man  with  a  baby  drum.  We 
laugh  at  a  little  man  on  tiptoes,  thrumming  a  base  viol. 
We  laugh  at  insignificant  distress,  as  at  a  lady  who  loses 
her  lap-dog.  We  laugh  at  extravagant  pretension  which 
suddenly  collapses,  as  at  an  orator  who  soars  to  a  star- 
lofty  climax  and  breaks  down.  We  laugh  at  cool  impu- 
dence, for  the  ready  and  courageous  invention  pleases. 
We  laugh  when  it  is  foiled,  as  at  a  lawyer  in  court  who  gets 
a  saucy  cut  from  a  female  witness.  We  laugh  at  a  sudden 
or  stealthy  surprise,  as  at  the  large  stranger  who  kicked 
an  ornamental  dog  on  the  steps  of  a  brown-stone  house, 
merely  to  see  if  it  was  "holler."  He  is  said  to  be  at  his 
aunt's,  ill,  but  he  is  not  over  his  surprise.  Young  ladies 
laugh  at  young  men — and  that  is  queer :  they  can  not  tell 
why ;  but  oftentimes  the  more  they  like  them,  the  more 
they  laugh  at  and  smile  on  them.  We  laugh  at  what  is 
serious  for  others,  as  at  a  man  looking  out  of  a  jail,  but 
never  at  what  seriously  affects  us,  as,  for  example,  if  we 
were  in  jail.  We  laugh  at  disguises,  at  the  dress  of  for- 
eigners, fops,  and  slovens.  We  laugh  when  we  see  some 
men  in  a  clean  collar  and  new  coat.  We  laugh  at  the 


46  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

meeting  of  extremes,  as  at  the  two  well-bred  fellows  who, 
being  pretty  thoroughly  soaked  with  bad  whisky,  got 
into  the  gutter,  and,  after  floundering  for  some  time,  one 
of  them  proudly  said,  "  Let's  go  to  another  hotel ;  this 
hotel  leaks."  It  is  hard  to  keep  children  from  laughing 
at  deformity,  at  negroes,  at  madmen,  at  fat  men,  at  long 
thin  men.  We  laugh  often  because  we  ought  not  to,  as 
in  church,  from  the  spontaneous  impulse  of  resistance  to 
sobriety.  We  laugh  at  the  utter  simplicity  of  some  men, 
and  the  more  so  if  the  laugh  is  caused  by  a  sudden  illus- 
tration of  it,  or  by  a  sudden  jerk  of  the  mind  to  an  absurd 
extreme,  as  the  other  day,  when  an  editor,  describing  the 
gifted  Dr.  Holland,  said  that  he  would  loan  money  to  a 
man  on  the  collateral  notes  of  an  accordion.  We  laugh 
— all  men  laugh,  but  Americans  especially — at  the  ag- 
grandizement of  special  foibles  of  character.  Dickens 
furnishes  illustrations  of  how  humorous  some  pre-eminent 
trait  may  be  made  to  seem  by  a  sort  of  Hogarthian  satire 
with  the  false  perspective.  But  this  exaggeration  is  not 
always  humorous. 

OUR   SPECIFIC   HUMORS. 

But  we  have  in  America  specific  objects  of  humor — 
the  scheming  Yankee,  the  big,  bragging,  brave  Kentuck- 
ian,  and  the  first-family  Virginian.  We  have  lawyers  on 
the  circuit,  as  in  the  Georgia  scenes ;  loafers  on  a  spree, 
as  in  Neal's  charcoal  sketches;  politicians  in  caucus; 
legislators  in  session  ;  travelers  on  cars  and  steamers ; 
indeed,  the  history  of  every  American's  life  is  humorous, 
moving  as  he  does  from  place  to  place,  and  even  when 
he  sits  down,  as  restless  as  the  stick  which  a  traveler  saw 
out  West  that  was  so  crooked  it  would  not  lie  still ! 

There  is  a  sympathy  running  through  the  American 


AMERICAN    HUMOR    IN    PARTICULAR.  47 

mind  of  such  intensity  and  excitement  in  relation  to  our 
physical  growth  and  political  prominence,  that  our  man- 
ners, movements,  and  mind  must  become  intensified. 
Why,  an  American  can  not  repose  unless  he  does  it  with 
might  and  main.  He  must  take  an  extravagant  position. 
It  expresses  an  imperturbable  confidence  in  the  destiny 
of  his  native  country,  and  the  wonderful  flexibility  in  the 
human  skeleton.  Foreigners  laugh  at  him  for  it.  A  for- 
eign tourist  says  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  mistake  an 
American  for  any  one  else  en  route.  He  either  has  his 
feet  upon  the  car- seat  in  front,  the  back  of  which  he 
turns  over  for  that  purpose,  or,  if  it  be  occupied,  he  sits 
with  his  knees  let  into  the  back  of  it,  keeps  up  a  contin- 
ual spitting,  invariably  reads  a  newspaper,  and  chews  his 
quid  as  he  rides.  It  should  have  been  for  an  American 
tobacconist  that  Curran  proposed  a  motto  for  the  pan- 
els of  the  coach  :  Quid  rides  !  The  wondrous  exaggera- 
tions of  Jules  Verne,  in  his  "Around  the  World  in  Eighty 
Days,"  are  placed  to  the  account  of  an  American.  Even 
the  leaping  of  streams  by  the  momentum  of  the  locomo- 
tive and  train  is  located  upon  our  territory.  When  at 
home,  the  American  soon  tires  of  sitting  still,  and  paces 
the  floor  with  restless  nervousness. 

Now,  the  highest  enjoyment  of  a  Frenchman  is  to  hear 
the  last  cantatrice  in  a  fashionable  opera.  The  Span- 
iard's transport  reaches  its  climax  when  in  the  arena  the 
matador  with  skillful  thrust  stretches  his  antagonist  in 
the  dust.  The  Neapolitan  finds  his  paradise  in  the 
lengthening  lusciousness  of  his  macaroni.  The  German 
rises  to  his  heaven  on  the  cloud  of  his  dreamful  pipe  and 
misty  metaphysics.  The  Englishman  grows  comfortably 
ecstatic  over  his  roast  beef  and  naval  glory.  The  Turk 
ascends  to  his  seventh  heaven  among  the  houris  while  he 


48  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

smokes  his  nargileh  and  sips  his  Mocha.  The  African, 
with  his  banjo  on  his  knee,  is  off  for  the  other  side  of 
Jordan.  The  Irishman's  chief  joy  is  to  take  off  his  frieze 
at  a  fair,  and,  with  shillalah  whirling,  invite  any  "jintle- 
man  to  stand  before  him,  or,  for  the  love  of  God,  just  to 
step  on  the  tip  end  of  his  coat-tail,  and  be  smashed  into 
smithereens."  But  the  American 

"  Finds  not  in  the  wide  world  a  pleasure  so  sweet 
As  to  sit  near  the  window  and  tilt  up  his  feet, 
Puff  away  at  the  Cuba,  whose  flavor  just  suits, 
And  gaze  at  the  world  'twixt  the  toes  of  his  boots." 

Let  the  American  be  in  motion,  there  is  the  same  extrav- 
agance. It  is  said,  "Wherever  you  see  him,  he  is  going 
over  the  ground  as  fast  as  he  can.  In  Europe  he  is  a 
pale  and  breathless  sight-seer,  always  in  rapid  transition, 
as  if  a  ghost  were  pursuing  him  ;  insatiably  accumulating 
stages,  as  if  his  life  depended  on  the  sum  total  at  the  end 
of  the  week.  He  carries  the  fever  of  business  into  the 
tour;  and,  reckoning  up  grand  sights  per  score  in  his 
mental  ledger,  he  becomes  a  capitalist  in  arches,  water- 
falls, glaciers,  old  columns,  Roman  relics,  lakes,  passes, 
galleries,  statues,  and  hotels  de  ville.  In  his  own  coun- 
try he  thinks  nothing  of  packing  up  all  his  goods,  wife, 
and  children,  and  setting  off  to-morrow  morning  for  some 
swamp  two  thousand  miles  off,  on  the  Missouri  or  Missis- 
sippi, where  every  thing  whatever,  even  the  rising  of  the 
sun,  you  would  think,  from  the  looks  of  the  scene,  has  to 
take  place  for  the  first  time.  He  stays  until  he  has  con- 
verted the  swamp  or  forest  into  a  fruitful  field,  and  then 
sets  off  with  his  wagon-load  again  to  some  place  as  dis- 
tant from  his  last  home  as  from  his  preceding,  to  renew 
his  battle  with  nature,  to  cut  down  and  build,  and  create 
a  fresh  world  for  culture." 


AMERICAN    HUMOR    IN    PARTICULAR.  49 

We  are  not  satisfied  with  perceiving  the  lines  of  em- 
pire in  the  infant  face  of  our  cradled  Hercules,  but  we 
must  be  always  dandling  the  plump  young  one  on  our 
knee,  and  churning  him  until  the  world  observes  his  pre- 
maturity of  size  and  vociferousness  of  lungs  !  Our  vanity 
is  not  easily  exhausted.  We  do  not  like  people,  however 
smart,  who  belittle  us.  We  are  great  in  the  past,  greater 
in  the  present,  and  greatest  in  the  future.  We  never  tire 
of  hearing  our  own  praises.  Alexander  the  Great  at  last 
checked  the  praise  of  his  courtiers,  saying,  "What  need 
of  such  flattery  ?  Are  not  the  exploits  of  Alexander  suf- 
ficient to  speak  his  glory?"  We  have  no  such  sensitive 
Alexanders  in  our  midst. 

With  all  our  vanity,  energy,  and  unrest,  we  are  not  a 
dull,  cheerless  people.  Sour -faced  fellows,  yellow  and 
dyspeptic,  are  to  be  met  with  in  our  cars  and  streets ;  but 
they  are  not  the  type  of  the  American,  for  he  is  as  ready 
for  a  laugh  as  for  a  speculation,  as  fond  of  a  joke  as  of  an 
office.  Wherever  the  American  goes  in  his  tireless  round 
of  observation  and  traffic — whether  he  breaks  the  seal 
which  for  ages  had  closed  Japan  to  the  world,  or  wanders 
through  Africa  after  Livingstone,  or  roams  for  gold  at  the 
head-waters  of  the  Amazon,  or  among  the  Black  Hills 
reservations,  or  at  the  Cape  in  Africa,  or  for  diamonds, 
salted  or  unsalted,  in  Arizona,  or  stands  with  Kane  and 
Hall  on  the  shores  of  some  newly  found  sea  of  the  poles, 
or  whether  more  nearly  at  home — he  leaves  his  trail  on 
every  mountain -pass,  his  axe -stroke  in  every  forest; 
whether 

"  He's  whistling  round  St.  Mary's  Falls 

Upon  his  loaded  train, 
Or  leaving  on  the  pictured  rocks 
His  fresh  tobacco  stain," 

3 


50  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

he  is  leaving  the  rudiments  of  an  empire,  the  muscle  and 
mind,  and  the  invincible  good  nature  and  sense  of  the 
humorous,  by  which  he  is  enabled  to  mingle  with  all,  and 
to  rule  as  he  mingles. 

Wherever  he  goes  he  exaggerates  his  country,  his  po- 
sition, his  ability ;  and  his  humor  takes  the  same  size. 
If  he  does  not  enjoy  the  fun  made  at  his  own  dilation,  he 
is  the  cause  of  its  enjoyment  by  others.  What  with  the 
great  sea-serpents,  moon  hoaxes,  spirit-rappings,  Shaker- 
ism,  Barnum's  shows,  women's  rights,  free  love,  cannon 
concerts,  big  organs,  much-married  Mormonism,  and  oth- 
er quackeries  and  extravagances,  if  we  are  not  ourselves 
amused,  we  export  amusement  in  large  quantities.  An 
English  reviewer  says,  "America  is  determined  to  keep 
us  amused ;  we  are  never  left  long  without  a  startling 
novelty  from  the  almighty  republic." 

Washington  Irving,  in  his  quiet  way,  alluded  to  the  na- 
tional peculiarity,  which  he  epitomized  and  incarnated  in 
a  man  of  superior  pomposity,  as  a  "  great  man,  and,  in  his 
own  estimation,  a  man  of  great  weight — so  great,  that, 
when  he  goes  west,  he  thinks  the  east  tips  up !" 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXAGGERATIONS,   ETC.         51 


III. 

AMERICAN  HUMOR— ITS  EXAGGERATIONS,  ETC. 

"  In  all  thy  humors,  whether  grave  or  mellow, 
Thou'rt  such  a  touchy,  testy,  pleasant  fellow ; 
Hast  so  much  wit  and  mirth  and  spleen  about  thee, 
There  is  no  living  with  thee,  nor  without  thee." 

Spectator,  No.  68. 

IN  the  previous  article  on  this  theme,  I  considered  our 
humor  in  its  general  phases,  and  especially  in  its  exag- 
gerations. 

I  now  come  to  consider  the  distinctive  and  peculiar 
qualities  of  our  humor. 

We  have  not  a  little  humor,  especially  among  the  more 
cultivated  portion  of  our  people,  common  to  all  men — a 
translatable  humor,  quite  as  enjoyable  in  French  as  in 
English.  But  we  have  veins  of  our  own  as  rich  and  va- 
ried as  our  mines.  I  propose  to  prospect  for  a  few  of 
these  veins.  In  all  of  them  the  salient  quality — exagger- 
ation— appears. 

But,  first,  there  is  a  little  silvery  vein  which  runs 
through  our  newspapers,  and  which  Prentice,  of  Louis- 
ville, first  worked  successfully.  It  consists  in  adroitly 
garbling  a  brief  extract  from  an  opponent's  article,  and 
diverting  the  meaning  into  a  dash  at  some  frailty  of  the 
opponent.  The  manner  in  which  this  is  done  is  humor- 
ous, though  the  matter  generally  has  the  pungency  of  sar- 
casm and  wit.  Near  akin  to  this  species  of  humor  is  that 
which  has  recently  become  a  part  of  our  newspaper  para- 
graphs. 


52.  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

In  fact,  there  is  a  humor  peculiar  to  the  American  press. 
Capital  and  skill  are  required  to  keep  the  funny-para- 
graph man.  His  unique  distortion  of  phraseology,  his 
conceited  fancy  of  thought,  and  his  pyrotechnic  skill,  have 
become  indispensable  to  the  newspaper.  He  furnishes 
the  foamy  crest  which  tops  the  heavy  columns  of  tumult- 
uous editorial.  Mortimer  Thompson  (Doesticks),  Charles 
F.  Browne  (A.  Ward),  Robert  H.  Newall  (Orpheus  C. 
Kerr),  Samuel  L.  Clemens  (Mark  Twain),  Mr.  Shaw 
(Josh  Billings),  not  to  speak  of  Max  Adeler,  M.  Quad, 
and  John  Oakum,  furnish  the  galaxy  for  this  curious  hole 
in  the  editorial  and  social  sky.  They  shine,  and  differ 
as  they  shine.  From  Brooklyn  to  Detroit,  from  Danbury 
to  Vicksburg,  from  San  Francisco  to  New  York,  these 
asteroids  of  the  daily  press  flicker  away  for  our  amuse- 
ment. They  pass  and  cut  and  come  again  ;  now  in  blaze, 
and  now  in  gloom.  There  is  nothing  these  odd  writers 
will  not  essay.  There  is  nothing  so  dark  that  they  will 
not  try  to  "rive  with  private  ray."  The  great  American 
poem  which,  before  Walt  Whitman  yawped  about  it  so 
y  barbarically,  Mr.  Emerson  foresaw  in  clear  dream  and 
solemn  vision,  dazzling  the  imagination  and  only  waiting 
for  metres,  these  genii  are  preparing.  "  Our  log-rolling, 
our  negroes,  our  Indians,  our  boats,  and  our  repudiations, 
the  wrath  of  rogues,  and  pusillanimity  of  honest  men, 
the  Western  clearing,  Oregon  and  Texas,"  are  not  new 
elements,  but  they  are  yet  unsung.  Yet  they  are  as  full 
of  humorous  suggestiveness  to  these  paragraphists  as 
Troy  was  full  of  heroism  to  Homer's  eye — if  he  had  one. 
There  is  nothing,  from  the  transit  of  Venus  to  the  Bagh- 
vaat  Gheeta,  which  they  do  not  endeavor  to  deform  or 
adorn. 

They  have  done  much  by  their  meteoric  style,  in  squib 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXAGGERATIONS,   ETC.         53 

and  tale,  in  paragraph  and  extravaganza,  to  make  up 
the  volume  of  American  humor,  which  is  so  hard  to  be 
caught,  and,  when  caught,  much  of  it  so  hard  to  hold  and 
halter ;  and,  even  when  fully  caparisoned,  so  apparently 
useless,  till  broken  in,  for  the  grave  utilities  of  dray  or 
carriage,  plow  or  car. 

It  is  impossible  to  arrange  this  branch  of  our  humor 
upon  any  methodical  plan.     The  most  amusing  part  of 
it  consists  in  making  a  statement,  a  blank,  and  an  in-/ 
ference !     It  consists  in  giving  a  comic  account  of  a  ca-^ 
tastrophe,  and  then,  by  a  sudden  and  serious  turn,  leaving 
a  suggestive  hiatus,  making  a  conclusion  which  connects 
the  premises.     A  woman  undertakes  to  foment  a  fire  by 
taking  observations  with  a  kerosene -lamp  near  it.     The 
comment  is  :  "  Wet  day,  or  there  would  have  been  a  larger 
funeral."       . 

Mr.  Jones  was  observed  by  his  wife  through  the  win- 
dow to  kiss  the  cook  in  the  kitchen.  Comment:  "Mr. 
Jones  did  not  go  out  of  the  house  for  several  days,  and 
yet  there  was  no  snow-storm." 

A  young  man  in  Pennsylvania  attempted  to  stir  up 
several  rabbits  out  of  a  hole  with  the  butt-end  of  his  gun 
the  other  day.  Twenty -three  shots  have  been  picked 
out  of  his  shoulder,  and  the  doctor  is  still  probing.  The 
young  man  thinks  the  rabbits  must  have  escaped. 

A  woman  put  her  tongue  to  a  flat-iron  to  see  if  it  was 
hot.  That  household  has  been  remarkably  quiet  since. 

A  dear  good  fellow  at  the  South  telegraphs  to  his  affi- 
anced in  Maine,  "  Your  life  is  a  rich  bouquet  of  happi- 
ness, yourself  the  sweetest  flower.  If  Northern  winds 
whisper  Southern  wishes,  how  happy  you  must  be  ! 
Good-night.  Happy  dreams,  sweet  love.  Frank."  Four 
doctors  are  in  attendance  upon  the  telegraph-operator. 


54  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

A  good  man  read  that  the  Chinese  tell  the  time  of  day 
by  examining  the  pupil  of  a  cat's  eye.  He  carried  a  cat 
around  in  his  overcoat.  He  now  invests  in  arnica  plas- 
ter, and  carries  a  watch. 

"If  George  had  not  blowed  into  the  muzzle  of  his 
gun,"  sighed  a- widow  at  the  funeral  of  her  husband,  "he 
might  have  got  plenty  of  squirrels,  it  was  such  a  good 
day  for  them." 

"  He  handled  his  gun  carelessly,  and  put  on  his  angel 
plumage/'  is  a  late  obituary  notice. 

A  youth  showed  his  father's  pistol  to  little  Dicky. 
"  Eight  years  of  age,"  was  the  inscription  they  put  on  his 
little  casket. 

A  good  little  boy  tried  to  lift  himself  up  by  a  mule's  tail. 
The  doctor  thinks  the  scar  on  his  forehead  is  permanent. 

A  man  in  Memphis  undertook  to  get  a  mule  off  the 
steamboat  by  twisting  his  tail.  The  man  landed.  An- 
other mistook  the  head-lights  of  an  engine  for  a  fire-bug. 
He  subsequently  joined  the  temperance  society. 

A  young  man  fixed  himself  up  for  hunting ;  he  would 
call  on  a  young  lady,  and  let  her  see  how  nicely  he  look- 
ed ;  lie  stood  near  the  fire,  with  a  pound  of  powder  in  his 
coat-pocket.  He  was  seen  going  through  the  roof,  with 
a  pensive  smile. 

A  young  man  in  Louisville  thought  a  circular  buzz-saw 
was  standing  still ;  he  felt  it.  Several  fingers  are  pre- 
served in  the  best  of  spirits. 

A  young  lady,  aged  only  seventeen,  raised  a  large  fam- 
ily. She  used  a  keg  of  powder  in  the  cellar. 

A  well-dressed  person  saw  a  beautiful  damsel  at  a  win- 
dow in  New  York  City.  It  was  New-year's,  and  he  rang 
the  bell.  He  may  thank  the  beautiful  snow  at  the  foot 
of  the  steps  that  only  his  hat  was  mashed  ! 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXAGGERATIONS,  ETC.        55 

An  anvil  was  dropped  upon  a  colored  clergyman  from 
a  third-story  window.  He  complained  of  an  injury  to  his 
—hat. 

He  was  manipulating  the  windlass  of  a  well.  The 
handle  slipped  when  the  bucket  was  nearly  up.  "  Might 
anode — better — hie — than  to  go  foolin'  round  so  much 
water." 

It  is  not  certain  that  this  kind  of  humor  is  original  with 
America.  In  the  olden  time  priests  were  the  only  doc- 
tors. This  was  the  case  among  the  Jews.  The  Levites, 
of  course,  were  enraged  when  the  M.  D.'s  began,  under 
the  kings,  to  steal  away  their  patients.  The  Levites,  also, 
were  the  only  historians  of  those  days.  To  this  fact  is 
due  a  witty  slap  at  the  medical  tribe,  which  shows  that 
the  .inferential  humor  referred  to  is  old,  and  of  Hebraic 
origin.  In  2  Chronicles,  chap,  xvi.,  ver.  12,  13,  is  the 
following  :  "And  Asa,  in  the  thirty-and-ninth  year  of  his 
reign,  was  diseased  in  his  feet,  until  his  disease  was  ex- 
ceeding great :  yet  in  his  disease  he  sought  not  to  the 
Lord,  but  to  the  physicians.  And  Asa  slept  with  his  fa- 
thers I" 

Sometimes  these  examples  are  diffusive  in  style,  and 
too  elaborate  in  narrative.  A  case  of  confusion  worse 
confounded  comes  to  us  from  California.  But  the  style 
is  really  a  part  of  the  business.  Here  it  is  :  "An  indus- 
trious citizen,  who  lives  not  over  a  thousand  miles  from 
town,  arose  a  few  mornings  ago,  while  the  festive  lark 
was  still  snoring,  and,  with  a  tin  bucket  under  his  arm, 
went  to  the  barn  to  milk  the  family  cow.  It  was  dark 
and  rainy,  and  in  fumbling  about  for  old  Brindle  he  got 
into  the  wrong  pew  with  the  off-mule  of  his  wagon  team. 
He  can't  remember  now  which  side  of  the  roof  he  went 
out  at,  but  his  recollection  of  alighting  on  the  picket 


5  6  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

fence  is  very  vivid.  He  expects  the  bucket  down  in  a 
few  days." 

If  one  of  these  paragraphists  should  say  that  "  a  man 
ate  ten  dozen  of  eggs  on  a  wager  last  week,"  he  at  once 
gratifies  us  by  further  suggesting,  by  an  acrobatic  leap, 
that  the  "  money  he  won  has  been  paid  to  his  widow,  or 
that  the  funeral  was  a  mile  long."  A  man  in  Kansas 
said  he  could  drink  a  quart  of  Cincinnati  whisky,  and  he 
did  it ;  and  the  comment  is  that  the  "silver  mounting  on 
his  coffin  cost  thirteen  dollars  and  seventy-five  cents." 

Is  it  mentioned  casually  that  a  boy  sat  on  a  keg  of 
powder,  and  smoked  a  cigar  for  fun  ?  Then  it  follows, 
through  great  voids  of  suggestion,  that  the  fun  did  not  be- 
gin till  the  powder  exploded  !  Is  it  intimated  that  a  man, 
on  a  moonlit  night,  was  trying  to  convince  his  shadow 
not  to  follow  him,  but  to  "  go  home  ?"  Then  the  sequitur 
comes  along  that  he  is  an  object  of  a  "praying  crusade." 

ARTEMUS   WARD   AND   HIS   CLASS. 

There  is  another  kind  of  humor,  which  Artemus  Ward, 
the  showman,  originated.  His  visit  to  the  President 
elect  was  an  overdrawn  picture  of  the  gang  of  ravenous 
office-seekers  pressing  on  the  "honest  old  dispenser." 
He,  like  Nasby,  Billings,  and  company,  hid  under  bad 
orthography  and  worse  grammar  the  neatest  nonsense 
and  the  broadest  satire.  While  he  had  not  so  keen  and 
critical  a  sense  of  the  dialect  or  patois  as  Russell  Lowell 
shows  in  the  character  of  Hosea  Bigelow ;  while  he  had 
not  the  pointed  wit  of  Holmes  or  Saxe,  whose  verses  are 
a  fit  frame  for  their  exquisite  artistic  humor,  yet  Arte- 
mus, next  to  Mark  Twain  and  Bret  Harte,  hit  the  very 
midriff  of  American  humor.  Illustrations  occur  to  all. 
His  interview  with  the  Prince  of  Wales  in  Canada,  his 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXAGGERATIONS,   ETC.         57 

amusing  attempt  to  buy  the  Tower  of  London,  which  so 
shocked  the  pompous  old  warder,  are  samples.  How  the 
world  was  startled  to  know  that  it  continued  to  "  revolve 
around  on  her  axle-tree  onst  in  twenty-four  hours,  sub- 
jeck  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  !"  "  If  you 
ask  me,"  said  he,  "how  pious  the  muchly  married  Brig- 
ham  Young  is,  I  treat  it  as  a  conundrum,  and  give  it  up." 
But  who  can  forget  how  he  won  his  Betsy  Jane  ?  The 
situation  of  the  lovers  was  embarrassing,  to  say  the  least. 
"We  sot  thar  on  the  fence,  a-swingin  our  feet  two  and 
fro,  blushin  as  red  as  the  Baldinsville  skool-house  when 
it  was  fust  painted,  and  lookin  very  simple,  I  make  no 
doubt.  My  left  arm  was  ockepied  in  ballunsin  myself 
on  the  fense,  while  my  rite  was  woundid  lovinly  round 
her  waste." 

The  reasons  why  the  two  sympathized  are  amusingly 
simple  :  "  Thare  was  many  afFectin  ties  which  made  me 
hanker  arter  Betsy  Jane.  Her  father's  farm  jined  our'n  ; 
their  cows  and  our'n  squencht  their  thurst  at  the  same 
spring ;  our  old  mares  both  had  stars  in  their  forrerds ; 
the  measles  broke  out  in  both  famerlies  at  nearly  the 
same  period ;  our  parients  (Betsy's  and  mine)  slept  reg- 
larly  every  Sunday  in  the  same  meetin-house ;  and  the 
nabers  used  to  obsarve,  'How  thick  the  Wards  and 
Peasleys  air  !'  It  was  a  surblime  site,  in  the  spring  of  the 
year,  to  see  our  sevral  mothers  (Betsy's  and  mine)  with 
their  gowns  pin'd  up  so  thay  couldn't  sile  'em,  affecshun- 
itly  Biling  sope  together  &  aboozin  the  nabers." 

A  portion  of  this  humor  seems  to  emanate  from  a  pure 
love  of  the  superlatively  grotesque.  We  hardly  know 
how  to  analyze  such  ultimately  funny  nonsense  as  that, 
for  instance,  of  the  "Fat  Contributor's"  account  of  the 
"one  twin" — a  human  parenthesis  with  one  bracket  gone 

3* 


5^  WHY    WE   LAUGH. 

— always  pawing  round,  even  in  sleep,  for  his  missing 
brother. 

What  a  quaint  conceit  was  that  which  so  puzzled 
Mark  Twain  as  to  what  is  going  to  be  done  with  the 
dead  who  are  petrified,  at  the  Resurrection !  He  con- 
cludes that  they  are  to  be  polished 7  However,  he  thought 
his  judgment  might  be  erroneous,  as  he  had  had  no  ex- 
perience yet  in  resurrections ! 

His  best  humor  is  in  a  graver  mood.  I  refer  to  the  ele- 
gance and  drollery  of  his  "  Innocents  Abroad."  Never  has 
there  been  a  more  tear-compelling,  juicier  piece  of  serio- 
comic weeping  and  wailing  than  Twain's  mourning  over 
the  supposed  grave  of  his  ancestor  Adam.  I  omit  his 
story  of  the  Seven  Sleepers,  his  naive  remarks  as  to  the 
sign  manual  and  handwriting  of  Christopher  Columbus, 
his  discussion  of  the  oyster's  love  of  enterprise  and  of 
the  beautiful,  whose  shells  he  found  on  the  heights  above 
Smyrna.  In  a  volume  like  this,  intended  not  to  make  a 
laugh,  but  only  to  show  why  we  laugh,  it  is  out  of  place 
to  quote  redundantly.  But  I  may  be  allowed  to  refer  to 
his  recent  speech  before  the  Accident  Insurance  Com- 
pany, in  which  he  expressed  his  satisfaction  at  observ- 
ing cripples  —  they  advertised  the  company — and  then 
the  further  satisfaction  which  injured  humanity,  after  in- 
surance, took  in  the  loss  of  legs  and  arms !  But  I  can 
not  refrain  from  one  familiar  quotation.  I  refer  to  his 
lament  in  memory  of  his  blood-relation :  "  The  tomb  of 
Adam  !  how  touching  it  was,  here  in  a  land  of  strangers, 
far  away  from  home  and  friends !  True,  he  was  a  blood- 
relation  ;  though  a  distant  one,  still  a  relation  !  The  un- 
erring instinct  of  nature  thrilled  its  recognition.  The 
fountain  of  my  filial  affection  was  stirred  to  its  profound- 
est  depths,  and  I  gave  way  to  tumultuous  emotion.  I 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXAGGERATIONS,  ETC.         59 

leaned  upon  a  pillar  and  burst  into  tears.  I  deem  it  no 
shame  to  have  wept  over  the  grave  of  my  poor  dead  rel- 
ative. Let  him  who  would  sneer  at  my  emotion  close 
this  volume.  Noble  old  man — he  did  not  live  to  see  his 
child  ;  and  I — I — I,  alas !  did  not  live  to  see  him.  Weigh- 
ed down  by  sorrow  and  disappointment,  he  died  before 
I  was  born  —  six  thousand  brief  summers  before  I  was 
born.  But  let  us  try  to  bear  it  with  fortitude.  Let  us 
trust  he  is  better  off  where  he  is.  Let  us  take  comfort 
in  the  thought  that  his  loss  is  our  eternal  gain."  This  is 
the  humorous  sublime  !  It  is  lachrymosely  and  comical- 
ly magnificent ! 

This  is  only  equaled  by  the  "  Heathen  Chinee  "  of  Bret 
Harte.  This  poet-humorist  of  the  Sierras,  producing  the 
patois  of  the  miner  and  the  hunter  of  the  Pacific  slope, 
and  drawing  an  economical  lesson  out  of  the  game  of 
euchre  by  the  aid  of  Ah  Sin,  the  pensive  and  child-like 
Celestial,  has  in  him  all  the  facetiousness  of  Dickens  and 
of  his  Sairy  Gamp  concentrated  in  Truthful  James,  all 
the  mischievous  deviltry  which  Bill  Nye  could  furnish, 
and  all  the  roistering  rowdyism  of  a  scene  in  "Harry 
Lorrequer."  Besides,  there  is  a  moral  which  an  Oriental 
story-teller  would  envy.  It  brings  together  the  Orient 
and  Occident  of  cunning  fun.  Withal,  there  is  the  ele- 
ment of  exaggeration,  without  which  no  American  humor 
seems  to  be  possible. 

For  another  source  of  our  daily  fun  we  are  indebted 
to  Shillaber.  His  Mrs.  Partington,  however,  is  but  an 
American  edition  of  Sheridan's  Mrs.  Malaprop.  We 
love  the  old  lady  the  more  when  we  hear  her  say,  like 
a  good  housewife,  that  she  gets  up  every  morning  at  the 
shrill  carrion  of  the  chandelier !  But  her  mischievous 
nephew,  Ike,  is  purely  indigenous.  His  mischief  is  the 


60  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

very  essence  of  Young  America,  without  its  father.  Ike 
is  yet  to  grow  into  the  full  stature.  He  stands  as  the 
juvenile  embodiment  of  a  peculiar  vein  known  among 
us  as  practical  jokes — what  the  boys  term  "sells,"  and 
from  which  springs  their  expression,  "Well,  he's  sold." 
This  is  almost  a  monomania  with  some.  Even  such  play- 
ers as  Sothern  have  not  disdained  to  practice  its  pranks. 
TTis  the  result  of  that  proverbial  shrewdness  which  seeks 
'to  slyly  lead  a  green  one  on,  in  the  most  natural  way  in 
the  world,  until  the  catastrophe  is  ready,  when  the  pitfall 
is  opened,  and  the  victim  drops  or  rushes  in  with  a  cu- 
riosity only  equaled  by  the  surplus  fund  of  experience 
he  receives.  Barnum's  book  has  many  examples 
of  these  "sells."  Yankee  tricks,  which  in  the  eye  of 
ethics  are  but  another  term  for  swindling,  are  illustra- 
tions. The  raciness  of  the  joke  hides  the  rascality  of  the 
job ;  and  we  applaud  the  successful  humorist,  first,  be- 
cause we  can  not  but  admire  his  shrewd  calculations  on 
the  simplicity  of  human  nature,  and,  next,  because  we  are 
glad  to  see  our  fellows  learning  the  ways  of  the  world  in 
such  an  amusing  way.  In  trading,  this  Yankee  is  the 
very  incarnation  of  the  keenest  shrewdness.  He  will 
be  sure  to  do  business  under  the  most  adverse  circum- 
stances, and  secure  a  profit  also.  This  propensity  is  por- 
trayed in  the  story  of  Sam  Jones.  That  worthy,  we  are 
told,  called  at  the  store  of  a  Mr.  Brown,  with  an  egg  in 
his  hand,  and  wanted  to  "  dicker  "  it  for  a  darning-needle. 
This  done,  he  asks  Mr.  Brown  if  he  "  isn't  going  to  treat." 
"  What,  on  that  trade  ?"  "  Certainly  ;  a  trade  is  a  trade, 
big  or  little."  "  Well,  what  will  you  have  ?"  "A  glass  of 
wine,"  said  Jones.  The  wine  was  poured  out,  and  Jones 
remarked  that  he  preferred  his  wine  with  an  egg  in  it. 
The  store-keeper  handed  to  him  the  identical  egg  which 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXAGGERATIONS,  ETC.        6 1 

he  had  just  changed  for  the  darning-needle.  On  break- 
ing it,  Jones  discovered  that  the  egg  had  two  yolks. 
Says  he,  "  Look  here  ;  you  must  give  me  another  darn- 
ing-needle!'' 

The  Dutchman  was  a  victim  to  a  practical  joke  who 
lost  five  dollars  to  the  Yankee  on  a  bet  that  the  Yankee 
could  eat  the  Dutchman.  Jonathan  began  the  work  of 
mastication  at  the  extremities,  and  was  soon  saluted  by 
the  roar  and  kick  of  the  Dutchman.  "Oh,  mein  Gott! 
Dunder  und  Blitzen !  stop  dat  bitin' !  Take  your  five 
dollar.  It  hurts  !" 

Sometimes  these  jokes  pay,  sometimes  not.  The  Yan- 
kee skipper  whose  vessel  was  mistaken  by  an  English- 
man for  a  Russian,  and  who  did  not  run  up  his  bunting 
until  the  Englishman  was  about  to  broadside  him,  and 
who  gave  as  a  reason  "that  he  wanted  to  see  how  spry 
Bull  would  clear  for  action,'7  came  near  paying  dearly  for 
his  joke. 

The  best  humor  is  always  more  or  less  exaggerative^" 
Falstaff 's  monstering  of  his  courage,  and  Captain  Boba- 
dil's  plan,  with  nineteen  men  besides  himself,  of  annihi- 
lating an  army  of  forty  thousand,  are  illustrations  of  En- 
glish exaggeration. 

It  was  both  a  humorous,  useful,  and  a  witty  exaggera- 
tion, that  of  the  English  comedian,  Mathews,  who  recent- 
ly presented  his  compliments  to  the  human  race,  begging 
leave  to  state  that,  as  much  as  he  loved  them,  he  found 
it  impossible  to  provide  for  the  necessities  of  London 
alone.  No  better  answer  could  be  returned  to  the  indis- 
criminate begging  in  big  cities. 


62  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 


IV. 

AMERICAN  HUMOR  — ITS  EXTRAVAGANCE  IN  OPIN- 
ION AND  EXPRESSION. 

"  We  are  ready  to  split  our  sides  with  laughing  at  an  extravagance 
that  sets  all  common  sense  and  serious  concern  at  defiance." — HAZ- 
LITT,  On  Wit  and  Humor. 

BUT  if  there  be  one  quality  of  American  humor  by 
which  more  than  another  it  can  be  characterized,  it  is  the 
universal  tendency  to  exaggeration.  Why  there  should 
be  fun  in  such  efforts  is  not  the  inquiry.  Whether  it  be 
owing  to  the  doctrine  of  natural  depravity,  which  likes  a 
lie,  or  whether  to  vanity,  which  would  blow  the  bellows 
for  its  own  dilation,  or  to  an  honest  intention  to  amuse 
without  the  intention  to  deceive,  I  care  not  to  discuss. 
This  tendency  to  spread  one's  self  to  intensity  is  an 
American  trait,  and  the  great  source  of  our  fun.  We  go 
our  whole  length  on  every  occasion,  and  as  much  more 
as  we  can  stretch.  Our  language  is  never  meek ;  it  is 
superlative.  Our  ideas  are  on  their  utmost  tension  ;  our 
conduct  is  regulated  on  the  fast  principle.  It's  "go  your 
death  on  it;"  "pile  up  the  agony;"  "make  it  strong;" 
"let  her  went."  Grammar  and  spelling  are  not  regard- 
ed. The  idea  of  repression  is  alien  to  our  sovereigns. 
We  never  stay  our  strength  in  mid  volley,  but  pour  in  all 
the  powder,  and  make  the  biggest  boom  of  which  our  cali- 
bre is  capable.  America's  motto  is,  "  Go  it."  We  do  not 
know  where  we  shall  light,  but  "  Go  it."  It  does  not  mat- 
ter how  serious  the  occasion,  the  prevailing  rush  must  not 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,  ETC.          63 

be  interfered  with.  The  irreverent  American  translates 
the  phrase,  "Rise  up  and  walk,"  into  "Get  up  and  git." 

"  Talk  about  your  Vesuve !"  said  an  American  to  a 
Neapolitan.  "  Niag  '11  put  her  out  in  three  minutes." 

Sometimes  such  exaggerations  are  a  little  nebulous ; 
but  the  climax  always  points  to  unveracious  tumidity. 
A  North  Carolina  corn-sheller  makes  a  wager  with  a  pa- 
tent-peddler. Dressed  in  blue  jeans,  and  with  a  cob- 
pipe,  the  sheller  selects  a  red  ear  of  corn,  and  the  fight 
begins.  Of  course,  the  machine  gets  the  worst  of  it.  It 
is  too  dilatory.  "  I  ain't  got  no  time  to  shell  agin  that 
thing.  It  would  make  me  slow-motioned  for  life  !" 

A  Tennessee  editor,  rather  than  do  such  a  thing,  would 
see  every  thing  sunk  as  far  into  perdition  as  a  trip-ham- 
mer would  fall  in  a  thousand  years.  He  would  rather 
see  his  home  wasted  and  his  children  starve  to  death, 
and  then  seat  himself  on  their  coffins,  with  a  Southern 
gentleman,  and  play  pushpin  for  the  whisky !  This  was 
Parson  Brownlow. 

"  Yes,  sir,  I've  been  to  Sodom  and  Gomorry,  and  seen 
the  pillar  of  salt  Lot's  wife  was  turned  into."  "Good 
salt — genewine  ?"  asked  a  Hoosier  of  the  traveled  gos- 
peler.  "  Yes,  sir,  a  pillar  of  salt !"  "  In  the  open  air  ?" 
"Yes,  sir,  in  an  open  field,  where  she  fell."  "Well,  all 
I've  got  to  say  is,  if  she'd  dropped  in  Indiana,  and  in 
our  parts,  the  cattle  would  have  licked  her  up  before 
sundown  !" 

Our  ideas  have  time  as  the  essence,  and  the  least  time 
possible  is  most  essential.  La  Bruyere  said  that  Wit  was 
the  God  of  Moments,  as  Genius  was  the  God  of  Ages. 
But  why  should  Wit  be  dissociated  from  Genius?  The 
quicker  the  flash,  the  more  potential  the  controller  of  the 
lightning. 


64  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

When  the  cholera  was  devastating  New  Orleans  daily, 
ay,  hourly,  a  waiter  ran  into  the  bar-room  of  the  St. 
Charles  Hotel,  and  gave  this  order  in  the  rapid  style  of 
such  characters  :  "  Two  brandy  cocktails  for  No.  24,  a 
gin  flip  for  No.  26,  and  a  coffin  for  No.  29.  Two  first  in 
a  hurry  ;  t'other  can  wait." 

In  one  of  the  railroad  disasters  on  the  Baltimore  road, 
a  survivor,  in  answering  the  query  as  to  what  was  passing 
in  his  mind  as  the  car  was  rolling  over,  gave  a  character- 
istic answer  when  he  replied,  "  Oh,  y-y-es,  I  perfectly  re- 
member saying,  '  Lord,  have  mercy  on  us ;  and  don't  be 
too  long  about  it,  for  there's  not  a  minute  to  spare !' " 
In  the  very  article  of  death  the  ruling  passion  of  "  Put  it 
through,  on  the  fast  line,"  but  echoes  the  enterprise  of 
our  people.  Scott  and  Vanderbilt  must  ride  more  than 
a  mile  a  minute,  or  there  is  something  wrong.  Yes,  and 
they  ride  themselves,  to  show  that  it  can  be  done  safely. 
It  would  seem  as  if  all  veneration  for  the  solemnities  of  life 
had  departed  from  us.  We  act  as  if  there  were  no  future 
world — we  certainly  act  as  if  we  believed  there  were  no 
Satan  and  no  retribution.  Our  little  boys,  behind  their 
cigars,  and  down  on  the  "  old  man,"  the  "  venerable  au- 
thor of  their  being,"  as  he  is  sometimes  called,  for  some 
parental  injunction  ;  the  proprietor  of  the  newly  organ- 
ized city  of  Pumpkinville — away  out  West — dilating  on 
the  unrivaled  advantages  by  water,  by  rail,  and  by  plank- 
road  of  his  magnificent  site ;  the  Fourth-of-July  or  Cen- 
tennial orator  telling  the  masses  of  Blatherville  about  the 
voice  of  one  freeman  being  equal  to  a  thousand  Austrian 
bayonets,  and  sweeping  the  periphery  of  creation  to  gath- 
er immense  symbols  of  our  everlasting  glory ;  the  poet 
just  fledged,  and  trying  his  feeble  pinions  on  the  thun- 
derous symphonies  of  that  almighty  heft  of  water  at  Ni" 


AMERICAN    HUMOR  —  ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,  ETC.          65 

agara ;  the  young  attorney  addressing  his  first  jury,  and 
never  in  the  course  of  his  extensive  practice  having  met 
such  outrageous  injustice  as  that  attempted  on  his  client ; 
or  our  biggest  statesmen  behind  their  senatorial  desks, 
and  down  on  all  mankind  for  their  outrage  on  and  pre- 
sumption toward  this  great  nation — all  find  expression  in 
the  sacrilegious  and  reckless  verse  sung  by  our  boys : 

"If  you  want  to  live  well, 
Go  to  a  crack  hotel, 

And  call  for  de  best  accordin'. 
When  de  bill  begins  to  swell, 
Tell  'em  all  to  go  to—    Well, 

We  leave  for  de  oder  side  o'  Jordin." 

Hear  one  of  our  urchins  sing  that  in  fortissimo  style,  with 
a  crescendo,  and  you  will  understand  the  rollicking  inde- 
pendency which  obtains  among  us.  The  utter  disregard 
of  sacred  things  is  not  common  alone  to  our  boys.  In 
the  Reign  of  Terror  in  France,  while  the  men  were  cut- 
ting off  human  heads  and  carrying  them  around  Paris  on 
pikes,  the  boys  were  imitating  them  by  guillotining  cats 
and  carrying  around  their  heads  on  sticks. 

IRREVERENCE   AND   HUMOR. 

Our  youths  outdo  the  children  of  all  other  nations  in 
their  lack  of  reverence  for  the  aged  and  for  their  parents. 
Is  it  not  a  true  story,  that  of  a  particularly  smart  child 
\vho  left  home  at  the  age  of  fifteen  months  because  he 
heard  that  his  parents  intended  to  call  him  Obadiah? 
This  irreverence  enters  into  our  recent  poetry.  Colonel 
John  Hay  understands  it.  He  shows  it  in  the  story  of 
the  Prairie  Belle  and  her  heroic  engineer.  I  do  not  refer 
to  the  dialect  of  the  Western  boatman,  nor  to  the  gro- 
tesque picture  of  the  steamer — 


66  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

"  The  oldest  craft  of  the  line, 
With  a  nigger  squat  on  the  safety-valve, 
And  her  furnace  crammed,  rosin  and  pine  " — 

nor  to  Jim  Bludsoe's  exclamation  above  the  roar  of  the 
flames, 

"  I'll  hold  her  nozzle  agin  the  bank 
Till  the  last  galoot's  ashore," 

but  to  the  audacity,  suitable  to  the  time  and  country, 
with  which  he  ushered  his  hero  into  heaven,  with  all  the 
"cussedness"  which  made  him  stick  to  his  post  until  his 
ghost  went  up  in  the  smoke  of  the  burning  boat.  This 
audacity  is  specially  noticeable  in  the  pretty  and  touch- 
ing story  which  Colonel  Hay  has  versified  in  his  "  Little 
Breeches."  The  father  finds  his  little  son,  after  long 
searching  in  the  prairie  snows,  sitting  upright  in  the 
sheep-fold,  chewing  tobacco. 

"  How  did  he  git  thar  ?    Angels." 
And  then  he  breaks  out  into  the  exclamation : 

"  I  think  that  saving  a  little  child, 
And  bringing  him  to  his  own, 
Is  a  derned  sight  better  business 
Than  loafing  around  the  throne  !" 

This  fills  the  American  idea  of  unrest.  It  means  busi- 
ness. Such  ideas  attract  not  merely  because  they  are 
expressed  humorously  and  dialectically,  not  because  they 
glorify  the  paternal  instinct,  but  because  of  their  utter 
irreverence.  Yet  this  is  not  more  irreverent  than  Low- 
ell's verse  about  an  unholy  Democrat  and  the  Mexican 
war : 

"  You  hev  to  get  up  airly 
Ef  you  want  to  take  in  God." 

Its  counterpart  is  seen  in  the  juvenile  performance  of  a 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,  ETC.         67 

lad  who,  kneeling  by  his  pious  mother,  repeated  the  well- 
known  child's  prayer  : 

"  Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep, 
I  pray  the  Lord  my  soul  to  keep  ; 
If  I  should  die  before  I  wake — 
Pop  goes  the  weasel !" 

For  sacrilegious  audacity  we  give  the  following:  An 
American  company  in  the  Mexican  war  was  drawn  up  in 
line  in  one  of  the  churches  of  the  city  of  Mexico.  Sud- 
denly the  cry  of  "Temblor!  temblor!"  was  heard,  and 
while  the  Mexicans  were  rushing  wildly  out  of  their 
houses,  and  in  greatest  consternation  dropping  on  their 
knees,  beseeching  the  protection  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  this 
American  company  at  every  horizontal  quake  would  be 
dashed  against  the  church-walls.  What  are  they  think- 
ing of?  With  ready  exaggeration  they  liken  their  situa- 
tion to  one  of  the  surf-boats  which  they  had  used  at  Vera 
Cruz.  At  every  surge  the  cry  goes  round,  "Shove  her 
off,  boys!"  "Steady,  men;  keep  your  places."  "Now 
she  rises!"  "  Shove  her  off!" 

Again  does  our  assertion  hold  good  in  the  case  of  the 
youth  who  was  told  the  story  of  the  two-and-forty  chil- 
dren who  were  torn  by  the  bears  for  mocking  the  proph- 
et. Instead  of  heeding  the  moral,  he  went  right  out  and 
saluted  the  first  baldheaded  individual  with,  "Go  up, 
baldhead  !  Now  bring  on  your  bears  !"  The  Germans 
have  a  word,  heilig.  It  means  healthy  and  holy.  We 
could  well  spare  some  of  our  pet  words  for  so  sound 
and  sacred  an  adjective. 

In  Cincinnati,  when  the  Prince  of  Wales  went  to  the 
Opera-house,  a  boy  put  his  head  into  the  carriage-win- 
dow, and  astonished  his  hearers  by  singing  out,  "  How 
are  you,  Wales  ?  How's  your  ma  ?" 


68  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

Not  long  since  a  good  man  addressed  one  of  our 
Western  Sabbath-schools.  He  told  them  of  the  better 
world  in  tones  so  pathetic,  and  with  tears  so  sincere,  that 
he  seemed  to  touch  chords  of  finest  feeling  in  their  gen- 
tle young  bosoms.  He  concluded  his  discourse  by  re- 
questing them  to  sing  "Jordan."  Instead  of  "Jordan's 
stormy  banks,"  he  was  astounded  to  hear,  in  one  unbro- 
ken chorus,  that 

"Jordan  am  a  hard  road  to  trabel." 

The  comic  wonder  elicited  by  this  irreverent  boldness 
has  not  yet  subsided  in  the  vicinity  where  it  occurred. 

One  would  suppose  that,  in  a  Christian  country,  that 
stream,  consecrated  by  such  holy  memories,  would  not  be 
polluted  by  the  ribaldry  of  our  youth.  Jordan !  whose 
banks  are  hallowed  by  the  foot -print  of  prophet  and 
saint ;  whose  waters  rose  up  that  Israel  might  bear  over 
that  beauteous  type  of  our  covenant  with  Heaven  ;  whose 
wave  mirrored  the  clear  sky,  and  the  peaceful  dove  de- 
scending upon  the  baptized  form  of  the  Redeemer,  em- 
blematic of  the  Father's  pleasure  !  Jordan  !  the  sancti- 
ty of  whose  name,  though  the  twelve  stones  erected  by 
grateful  Israel  have  long  since  moldered,  and  though  the 
spot  where  the  body  of  our  Lord  was  laved  by  its  wa- 
ters has  no  monument  for  its  identity — though  the  Bed- 
ouin roams  in  its  valley,  and  its  calcined  soil  no  longer 
smiles  with  cultivation — Jordan  is  still  dear  to  the  Chris- 
tian of  every  clime,  as  with  wistful  eye  he  gazes  upon 
that  fair  and  happy  land  where  his  possessions  lie,  and 
with  the  power  of  grace  struggles  through  its  swelling 
flood  to  that  other  bank  where  the  world  hath  no  temp- 
tation and  the  tomb  no  terror,  where  immortality  with  the 
dear  ones  who  have  gone  before  becomes  a  presence  and 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.         69 

a  transport !  Jordan  !  whose  flow  makes  music  with  the 
dying  song  of  praise,  whose  light  silvers  the  darkness  of 
the  Valley  of  the  Shadow,  and  fills  the  fading  vision  with 
the  glory  of  answered  prayer,  and  the  soul  with  the  reali- 
ty of  that  country  beyond,  where  the  Good  Shepherd  for- 
ever infolds  his  own  in  the  sweet  pastures  by  the  still  wa- 
ters. Jordan !  ay,  and  what  other  consecrated  associa- 
tion is  not  broken  up  by  the  plowshare  of  riant,  defiant, 
independent  Young  America  !  Said  I  not  truly  that  our 
humor  stops  at  no  sacrifice  for  its  fun  ? 

Our  religious  music  in  fashionable  churches  is  assum- 
ing this  fast,  not  to  say  sacrilegious,  tone.  Before  we 
had  steam-engines  to  run  our  organs,  Doesticks  goes 
into  a  church,  where  the  organist  receives  a  big  salary  to 
draw  a  large  house  with  his  music.  The  organist  strikes 
up  "  Old  Hundred."  At  first  it  goes  as  it  ought  to  ;  but 
soon  the  organist's  left  hand  becomes  unruly  among  the 
bass  notes ;  then  the  right  cuts  up  a  few  monkey  shines 
on  the  treble ;  then  the  left  threw  in  a  large  assortment 
of  quavers  ;  right  led  off  with  a  grand  flourish  and  a  few 
dozen  variations  ;  left  struggled  manfully  to  keep  up,  but 
soon  gave  out,  dead  beat,  and  after  that  went  back  to 
first  principles,  and  hammered  away  religiously  at  "  Old 
Hundred,"  in  spite  of  the  antics  of  its  fellow;  right  struck 
up  a  march,  marched  into  a  quickstep,  quickened  into  a 
galop  ;  left  still  kept  at  "  Old  Hundred  ;"  right  put  in  all 
sorts  of  extras  to  entice  the  left  from  its  sense  of  proprie- 
ty ;  left  still  unmoved  ;  right  put  in  a  few  bars  of  a  popu- 
lar waltz  ;  left  wavers  a  little  ;  'right  strikes  up  a  favorite 
polka;  left  evidently  yielding;  right  dances  into  a  jig; 
left  now  fairly  deserts  and  goes  over  to  the  enemy,  and 
both  commence  an  animated  hornpipe,  leaving  poor 
"Old  Hundred"  to  take  care  of  itself.  Then  a  crash,  a 


70  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

squeak,  a  rumble,  and  an  expiring  groan ;  and  the  overt- 
ure is  finished,  and  service  begins. 

Is  not  this  the  fashionable  echo  to  the  boy's  song  of 
"  Jordan,"  told  humorously  by  an  almost  forgotten  writer 
— in  fact,  the  forerunner  of  the  large  class  who  rely  on  ex- 
aggeration's artful  aid  for  their  fun  ?  The  moral  quality 
of  our  humor  is  not  here  and  now  discussed.  We  can 
only  reprehend  its  lack  of  veneration. 

OVERDRAWN    HUMOROUS   DESCRIPTIONS. 

A  few  years  ago  the  letters  of  Doesticks,  from  which  I 
have  quoted,  ran  through  the  press,  a  gross  exaggeration. 
So  wild  were  they  that  they  could  not  last  long,  but  their 
ephemeral  success  shows  the  keen  delight  of  our  people 
in  this  limitless  humor.  His  description  of  the  American 
tragedian's  voice  ought  to  be  recalled :  "  Imitating  by 
turns  the  horn  of  Gabriel,  the  shriek  of  the  locomotive, 
the  soft  and  gentle  tones  of  a  forty  horse-power  steam- 
saw-mill,  the  loving  accents  of  the  scissors -grinder's 
wheel,  the  amorous  tones  of  the  charcoal-man,  the  rumble 
of  the  omnibus,  the  cry  of  the  driver  appertaining  thereto 
— rising  from  the  entrancing  notes  of  the  infuriated  house- 
dog to  the  terrific  cry  of  the  oyster-vender — causing  the 
supes  to  tremble  in  their  boots,  making  the  fiddlers  look 
around  for  some  place  of  safety,  and  moving  the  assem- 
bled multitude  to  echo  back  the  infernal  roar."  This  is 
an  etching  in  broad  limning  of  an  exaggeration.  It  was 
enjoyed  because  the  subject  was  commensurate  with  the 
description.  Shakspeare  himself  had  contemporary  play- 
ers who  suited  this  description.  Nor  are  such  characters 
limited  to  the  stage.  They  are  to  be  found  in  the  pulpit, 
and  even  in  so  sedate  a  body  as  Congress. 

Our  habits  and  fashions  as  well  as  our  talk  are  all 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.         71 

on  the  extensive  scale.  A  faithful  description  of  them 
would  provoke  laughter.  But  that  is  not  enough.  The 
description  must  be  overdrawn.  To  illustrate  :  It  is 
some  time  since  ladies  had  taken  to  hoops.  They  had 
completely  usurped  the  sidewalks  in  the  cities.  A  cyn- 
ical old  bachelor  meets  two  fair  ones  promenading,  and 
thus  enters  upon  his  description  :  "At  forty  paces  distant 
they  seemed  like  miniature  pyramids  of  silk ;  at  twenty 
paces  we  smelled  Cologne-water  and  other  essences;  at 
ten  paces  a  little  lump  like  a  bonnet  was  discernible  at 
the  top  of  the  skirt  pyramid ;  at  three  paces  distant  we 
heard  the  imbedded  voice  of  a  female  in  the  dress;  at 
two  paces  we  discovered  four  ringlets  of  slim  appearance, 
resembling  cat-tails  dipped  in  molasses,  two  eyes  of  weak 
and  absurd  expression,  lips  like  unto  thin  sandwiches, 
and  cheeks  rouged  with  mienfun  (Chinese  coloring). 
Positively  this  was  all  that  could  create  in  us  the  impres- 
sion or  imagination  that  the  above  things  (dry-goods, 
etc.)  formed  a  woman." 

Yet  who  would  not  rather  have  a  gigantic  piece  of 
unveracity,  like  that  story  told  by  the  man  at  the  wheel 
of  a  Vicksburg  steamer  ?  A  stranger  inquires  about  the 
alligators.  After  giving  statistics  upon  statistics  of  the 
number  of  alligators  on  the  sand -banks,  and  per  mile, 
and  the  number  destroyed,  the  truthful  narrator  reaches 
the  climax.  It  is  in  the  benevolent  captain  of  the  Nancy, 
who  once  injured  so  many  of  the  beloved  animals  on  a 
trip,  that  he  threw  liniment  overboard  to  them  ;  and  they, 
in  their  tender  regard  for  his  goodness  of  heart,  always 
responded  as  he  went  up  and  down.  They  not  only  lift- 
ed his  boat  over  bars,  but,  in  one  of  his  extremities  of  de- 
lay, towed  him  up  to  Vicksburg,  fifty  miles !  These  ex- 
aggerations, like  others  of  the  Doesticks  order,  have  a 


72  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

cause.  Our  national  success  has  kindled  it.  Within  the 
century,  what  have  we  not  done  ?  Moved  the  Indians 
west  of  the  Mississippi,  and  by  treaty,  etc.,  given  them 
missionaries  and  whisky,  money  and  schools,  and  our  In- 
terior Department  is  trying  to  civilize  all  that  the  War 
Department  can  not  murder ;  we  have  made  our  land 
the  principal  cotton  and  the  great  grain  growing  country 
of  the.  world  ;  we  have  increased  our  numbers  twelvefold, 
our  annual  income  twentyfold,  and  our  conceit,  pride, 
debt,  and  humor — manifold  ! 

True,  we  made  no  figure  at  the  great  World's  Exhibi- 
tion at  London,  in  1851,  nor  at  Vienna,  in  1873,  for  our 
greatness  was  too  large  for  transportation.  I  remember 
well  the  poor  display  we  made  in  1851.  We  had  India 
rubber  of  every  conceivable  form,  and  daguerreotypes 
without  number,  the  one  emblematic  of  the  conscience, 
and  the  other  of  the  vanity,  of  our  people.  Punch  laugh- 
ed at  our  eagle  floating  over  the  vast  expanse  of  noth- 
-iog;  but  did  it  affect  our  complacency?  Our  isolation 
from  Europe,  our  independency,  added  to  our  surprising 
progress,  have  impressed  us  with  the  idea  that  we  are  the 
model  people,  and  this  impression  will  make  us  so  as 
surely  as  thought  precedes  action.  This  self-esteem  is 
no  doubt  carried  to  a  laughable  length ;  but  ought  we  to 
be  unduly  sensitive  when  chaffed  about  it?  Without  it 
we  should  never  have  declared,  or  won,  or  enjoyed  our 
independence. 

Before  the  Declaration  of  Independence  we  went  our 
length  in  begging,  as  loyal  subjects  of  a  beloved  crown, 
for  our  English  rights.  History  says  that  our  humble 
petitions  were  presented  on  knees  to  the  royal  head,  who 
scorned  us.  But  we  were  no  sooner  scorned  than  we 
"went  our  length"  the  other  way,  The  Declaration 


AMERICAN    HUMOR ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.          73 

of  Independence  is  a  splendid  exaggeration  in  itself. 
"When  in  the  course  of  human  events,"  it  begins.  It 
could  not  say  "American"  events.  "The  laws  of  nature 
and  of  nature's  God"  is  its  transcendent  invocation. 
"All  men  are  created  equal,"  though  a  million  of  ebony 
evidences  were  then  existing  to  the  contrary.  "All  gov- 
ernment derives  its  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned," when,  as  Garrison  used  to  demonstrate,  if  that 
were  true,  no  government  could  exist  for  a  moment. 

With  such  a  chart,  and  with  such  a  grand  initial  mo- 
mentum, need  we  wonder  at  the  magnitude  of  our  ideas, 
the  magniloquence  of  our  orators,  and  the  exaggerations 
of  our  humor?  Our  large  lakes,  our  long  rivers,  our 
mountain  ranges,  our  mammoth  conifera,  our  vast  miner- 
al treasures,  our  wide  prairies,  our  great  crops,  our  grow- 
ing cities,  our  enlarging  territory,  our  unrivaled  tele- 
graphs, our  extensive  railroads  and  their  equally  exten- 
sive disasters,  our  mechanical  skill  and  its  infinite  pro- 
duction, our  unexampled  civil  unpleasantness  and  its  re- 
sults, would  seem  to  call  for  an  aggrandized  view  of  our 
political  and  social  position,  and,  as  a  consequence,  for  a 
broad,  big,  Brobdingnagian  humor. 

Think  of  what  we  have  had  these  past  years  —  the 
horse  distemper,  the  Boston  and  Chicago  fires,  and  two 
"tidal-wave"  elections  —  all  dispensations  of  what  Mrs. 
Malaprop  would  call  an  unscrupulous  Providence ! 

There  is  such  a  unity  in  the  human  mind  that  it  can 
not  be  high-strung  on  one  subject  without  being  similar- 
ly keyed  up  on  another.  There  is  a  sympathy  running 
through  the  American  mind  of  such  intensity  and  excite- 
ment in  relation  to  our  physical  growth  and  political 
prominence  that  our  humor  must  become  intensified. 
Our  rivers  in  their  spring  floods  typify  our  humor  with 

4 


74  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

their  rush,  their  whirl,  and  their  overflow  of  all  bounds. 
Future  chapters  on  legislative  and  oratorical  humors 
abundantly  demonstrate  this  position. 

A  half  century  ago  the  Edinburgh  Review  examined 
our  census,  and  found  enough  of  honest  triumph  for 
America  in  her  actual  position.  It  hoped  that  we  might 
spare  that  dazzling  galaxy  of  epithets  by  which  we  un- 
dertook to  persuade  ourselves  that  we  were  the  greatest, 
most  refined,  most  moral,  and  most  enlightened  people 
on  the  earth.  It  hoped  we  would  cease  sending  our 
statesmen  up  every  morning  to  Pisgah's  heights  to  enjoy 
a  prospective  subjugation  of  the  whole  globe.  We  were 
even  then  advised  to  drop  our  superlatives.  As  well  ad- 
vise an  American  to  refuse  his  photograph  to  be  hung 
at  a  county  fair !  We  are  great,  but  intensely  conscious 
of  it.  No  wonder  that  Dickens  returned  home  to  laugh 
at  the  infinitude  of  " remarkable  men"  everywhere  intro- 
duced to  him.  At  every  village  he  was  pointed  out  Gen- 
eral A,  or  Colonel  B,  or  Esquire  C,  as  such. 

OUR    HUMOROUS    WORDS   AND    DIALECT. 

If,  as  some  one  says,  posture  is  indicative  ~of  character ; 
if,  as  a  poet  sings,  there  is  a  happiest,  gayest  attitude  of 
things,  the  American  posture  is  unexampled  in  our  kind. 
But  what  shall  we  say  of  that  similar  extravagance  which 
pervades  our  dialect  and  our  opinions  ?  Our  dialect  has 
not  only  swollen  to  a  laughable  bulk,  but  the  wildest  per- 
versions of  good  words  have  resulted  from  it.  We  are 
slaves  to  the  tyranny  of  verbal  affluence.  One  of  our 
scholars  published  in  1848  a  dictionary  of  Americanisms; 
it  contains  over  four  hundred  pages.  We  naturalize  out- 
landish words  with  more  speed  than  we  naturalize  aliens. 
What  with  the  Dutch  of  New  York,  the  Scandinavians 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,  ETC.          75 

of  the  North-west,  the  Welsh  of  New  York  and  Ohio,  the 
French  of  Louisiana,  the  Germans  of  Pennsylvania,  the 
Minorcans  of  Florida,  the  Spanish  of  the  Mexican  war, 
the  Mennonites  of  Russian  proscription,  the  Indian  terms 
ingrafted  on  our  stock,  the  provincialisms  of  New  En- 
gland and  of  the  West,  and  the  broad-voweled  Africanese 
of  the  South,  not  to  speak  of  the  Chinese  pigeon  English, 
we  present  not  a  few  heterogeneous  elements  to  begin 
with,  which  our  writers  and  speakers  are  not  loath  to  ag- 
grandize. An  American  returns  after  a  journey  to  Vicks- 
burg.  His  salutation  to  the  first  man  he  meets  illustrates 
his  polyglottous  propensity  :  "  Moind  your  eye,  surr  ! 
Ach !  I  was  glad  to  know  you.  I  taught  I  know  efery 
body  here.  Wasse  Melican  mannee  ?  Parlez-vous  Fran- 
<^ais  ?  Nixy  ?  Oh  !  dat  vas  morch  better.  You  was  Yar- 
man  —  don't  it?  Not  by  a  dog  gone  sight.''  And  so, 
in  the  end,  the  American  patois  predominates.  No  soon- 
er is  the  horse  distemper  prevalent  than  it  is  named  "  epi- 
zootic," and  then  reduced  to  and  employed  as  a  verb  by 
the  negro  minstrelsy  of  our  cities.  It  was  only  the  other 
day,  after  the  election,  that  a  New  York  editor  saluted 
the  writer  as  a  "  Tidal  Waver  !"  Our  war  gave  us  at  least 
three  words  which  are  thoroughly  at  home  in  our  midst, 
"skedaddle,"  "gobble,"  and  "bummer." 

rr 

What  a  bevy  and  sudden  cast  of  beautiful  thoughts 
are  suggested  by  these  :  "  Give  him  Jesse  ;"  "  See  the  ele- 
phant;"  "mizzle;"  "cavorting"  "absquatulate;"  "va- 
mos;"  "beat  all  hollow;"  "blazes;"  "bobbery;"  "to 
make  no  bones  of;"  "  cawtawampously  chawed  up;" 
"chicken  fixins ;"  "cut  a  swathe;"  "flat-footed;"  "flum- 
mux  right  out;"  "full  chisel;"  "let  her  drive;"  "rip— 
siz — went;"  "rope  in;"  "scalawag;"  "shell  out;"  "yank 
her  out ;"  "  feel  streaky ;"  "  up  to  the  hub  ;"  "  wamble- 


76  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

cropped,"  and  "  sockdolager  !"  Our  political  nomenclat- 
ure, even,  would  make  a  chapter.  What  with  "Dough- 
face," "Buncombe,"  "Barn-burner,"  "Hunker,"  "Short 
Hairs,"  "Swallow-tails,"  and  the  various  kinds  of 
"shells,"  none  but  the  professed  politician  can  keep  up 
with  the  political  slang  factory. 

The  metaphorical  and  other  odd  expressions  belong- 
ing to  the  West  and  South — a  list  of  which  Mr.  Benjamin 
gives  in  his  lecture  on  Americanisms,  and  which  Mr. 
Bartlett  has  collected  in  his  dictionary — originate  in  some 
funny  anecdote,  which  makes  its  way  up  through  many 
mouths  until  it  obtains  the  imprimatur  and  stress  of  the 
Congressional  Globe  and  the  currency  and  accent  of  the 
metropolitan  press.  If  the  history  of  our  lexicography 
were  written,  it  would  be  a  comic  one ;  for  where  no  an- 
ecdote could  be  found  as  the  root  of  our  new  and  odd 
phrases,  their  origin  would  be  traced  to  the  necessities 
of  uneducated  but  original  geniuses,  who  make  words  for 
their  ideas  precisely  as  they  make  a  new  ox-yoke  or  a 
threshing-machine.  Their  origin  is  as  natural  and  spon- 
taneous, though  not  so  beautiful,  as  the  figure  of  Apollo 
.and  the  Muses,  in  the  stone  of  the  ring  of  Pyrrhus. 
These  words  soon  become  popular  from  the  oddity  of 
the  thing,  and  in  time  find  places  beside  the  dignified 
Latin  and  homely  Saxon  of  our  tongue. 

John  Bull  growls  at  what  he  calls  new-fangled  terms 
from  America;  and  he  calls  on  his  children  to  tolerate 
no  longer  that  which,  commencing  in  humorous  aberra- 
tion, has  continued  till  it  has  become  a  nuisance.  In  the 
United  States,  he  says,  if  a  half-dozen  newspaper  editors, 
postmasters,  and  dissenting  ministers,  two  or  three  re- 
volvers, a  bowie-knife,  a  tooth-pick,  and  a  plug  of  tobac- 
co, get  together,  the  meeting  is  called  a  monster  mass- 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,  ETC.          77 

meeting.  If  Joel  Wainright  blows  out  General  Ruffle's 
brains  on  the  New  Orleans  levee,  it  is  not  a  murder,  but 
a  "difficulty."  Our  civil  war  even  is  called  the  "late  un- 
pleasantness." If  any  thing  is  big,  it  is  forthwith  called 
mammoth ;  so  that  one  might  suppose  Anak  and  all  his 
sons  were  nephews  of  Uncle  Sam.  Some  English  au- 
thor waits  patiently  to  hear  of  our  plesiosaurus  pump- 
kins, or  ichthyosaurus  hedgehogs,  leviathan  lap-dogs,  be- 
hemoth butterflies,  and  great  sea-serpent  Congressional 
speeches !  He  gives  seventeen  synonyms  for  the  word 
"  money,"  thirty-two  for  the  word  "  drunk,"  and  thinks  it 
time  to  stop  this  importation  of  slang.  Is  this  verbose 
rlow  of  the  animal  and  inventive  spirit  entirely  salutary? 
We  ought  to  welcome  this  genesis  of  new  words,  since 
our  exaggeration  has  emasculated  and  disrobed  so  many 
of  our  old  English  words  of  their  meaning.  The  word 
powerful  is  powerless  to  convey  any  significance ;  mag- 
nificent is  tawdry ;  mighty  is  weak.  All  through  the 
South  the  expression  "mighty  nice"  or  "mighty  weak" 
is  as  common  as  that  vulgarity  in  England,  "  awfully  jol- 
ly." There  is  no  end  to  our  superlative  language.  Des- 
perate^ all-killing^  all-fired,  etc.,  are  gentle  terms  ;  first-rate 
is  generally  acknowledged  to  be  fifth-rate  ;  a  roarer  is  as 
gentle  as  a  cooing  dove  ;  tip-top  is  from  fair  to  middling ; 
splendiferous  is  only  tolerable  ;  old  hoss,  when  analyzed,  is 
found  to  be  the  tenderest  appellation  of  a  biped  juvenile 
without  hoofs  ;  and  an  institution  is  any  thing  the  institu- 
tor  pleases — an  eating-saloon,  a  free-love  club,  a  shoe-peg 
factory,  a  steam  fire-engine,  a  water-cure,  a  six-barreled 
pistol,  a  barber's  shop,  or  a  sausage -stuffing  machine. 
Some  years  ago  a  New  Orleans  paper  called  the  negro 
an  institution.  A  sanguine  young  father  denominates  his 
baby  an  institution.  The  generalizing  mind  of  America 


78  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

sees  in  the  baby  the  germ  of  future  republics,  and  he 
dares  express  it.  Not  long  since  a  New  York  paper  of- 
fered a  reward  for  a  new  set  of  terms  to  express  what 
used  to  be  expressed  by  many  of  these  familiar  words. 

As  illustrative  not  only  of  this  tendency  to  coin  new 
phrases,  but  fresh  and  exaggerated  metaphors,  we  quote 
from  Lowell  several  of  our  oddest  expressions.  The 
backwoodsman  prefers  his  tea  "  barfoot,"  meaning  with- 
out cream  and  sugar ;  a  rocky  piece  of  land  is  heavily 
mortgaged ;  hell  is  a  place  where  they  don't  cover  up 
their  fires  o'  nights ;  a  hill  is  so  steep  that,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  stage-driver,  lightning  couldn't  go  down  it 
without  being  shod  ;  the  negro  is  so  black  that  charcoal 
would  make  a  white  mark  on  him  ;  the  weather  was  so 
cold  that  a  fellow  who  had  been  taking  mercury  found 
his  boots  full  of  it. 

A  lover  likens  his  mistress's  ear  to  the  wings  of  a 
bat ;  her  neck  is  like  a  crooked-neck  squash ;  her  hair 
as  straight  as  a  carpenter's  line,  and  like  the  silk  of  an 
ear  of  green  corn  ;  her  nose  has  a  crook  like  a  sled-run- 
ner ;  her  eyes  are  like  a  glass  button  or  a  lightning-bug ; 
and  her  gait  is  that  of  a  foundered  horse  in  a  canter ! 

A  balloonist  went  up  so  high  that,  when  he  wanted  to 
come  down,  he  had  to  take  good  aim  to  hit  the  earth,  it 
was  so  small. 

A  Colorado  man  began  to  tell  of  a  barn  on  his  ranch, 
190  x  280  feet,  seven  stories  high,  and  bay-windows. 
He  was  at  once  overtopped  by  a  bigger  one  with  steam 
elevators  ;  and,  again,  that  was  overtopped  by  a  chicken- 
coop,  550  x  83 2 -feet,  and  a  cupola  on  top  for  the  roosters. 
The  roosters  died  from  the  high,  light  atmosphere  !  The 
word  roostar,  in  fact,  is  American.  He  is  the  star  that 
never  sets  ! 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.          79 

Our  unlettered  people  have  the  same  strain  :  "  mean 
enough  to  steal  acorns  from  a  blind  hog ;"  "  cold  as  the 
north  side  of  a  grave-stone  in  winter;"  "quicker  than 
greased  lightning ;"  "  handy  as  a  pocket  in  a  shirt ;" 
"he's  a  whole  team  and  a  dog  and  tar-bucket  under  the 
wagon."  Sometimes  this  tendency  is  subdued  in  the 
quaintest  way.  An  American  was  asked  if  he  had  cross- 
ed the  Alps.  He  said  he  guessed  he  did  come  over  some 
"risin'  greound  !"  Another  advised  a  man  with  big  feet, 
who  wanted  a  boot-jack,  to  go  back  to  the  forks  in  the 
road  and  pull  his  boots  off! 

Our  editors,  with  their  accounts  of  meetings,  their  ral- 
lies to  the  indomitable,  who  are  conquered  every  other 
year,  and  with  their  grandiloquent  fustian,  paint  the  peo- 
ple who  sit  to  them  for  a  likeness.  The  ware  is  suited 
to  the  demand.  As  is  the  court,  so  is  the  bar;  as  is 
the  public,  so  will  be  their  organs.  None  know  better 
than  the  editor  himself  the  ridiculousness  of  his  rhetor- 
ical gasconade.  Your  editor,  cigar  in  hand,  cool  as  the 
arctics,  sits  down  in  his  sanctum  and  writes  a  rally  for 
the  election.  He  calls  on  his  political  friends  :  "  Once 
more  to  the  breach  !"  He  hears  "  the  shouts  of  victory 
and  the  lamentations  of  the  vanquished."  He  puffs  his 
cigar.  "Victory  must  perch  on  our  banners.  Down 
with  corruption  !  Freemen,  keep  your  council-fires  burn- 
ing brightly  !"  He  takes  another  puff,  italicizes  the  man- 
uscript, and  writes  on.  "  Push  on  the  columns !  Rout 
them  !  Overwhelm  them  !  Let  the  welkin  ring  with  the 
soul-stirring  tidings  that  the  country  is  saved !"  He 
knocks  off  the  ashes,  and  the  "devil"  cries  for  "copy." 
The  breathless  patriot  besprinkles  it  with  notes  of  admi- 
ration, and  placidly  smiles  as  he  passes  it  over. 

The  American  acts  upon  the  principle  which  physiolo- 


So  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

gists  have  remarked,  that  there  is  something  besides  the 
nutritive  quality  requisite  in  food ;  that  a  certain  degree 
of  distention  of  the  stomach  is  required  to  enable  it  to 
act  with  its  full  powers ;  and  that  it  is  for  this  reason  hay 
and  straw  must  be  given  to  horses  as  well  as  corn  and 
oats,  in  order  to  supply  the  necessary  bulk. 

THE   HOLIDAY   SUITS   OF   OUR   LANGUAGE. 

The  elephantine  expansion  which  our  language  thus 
undergoes  could  not  fail  to  attract  the  facile  pen  of  Ol- 
lapod.  He  gives  the  capabilities  of  our  vernacular  in 
these  instances  : 

ORIGINAL.  "  Go  to  the  devil  and  shake  yourself."  IM- 
PROVED. "  Proceed  to  the  arch-enemy  of  mankind  and 
agitate  your  person."  . 

ORIGINAL.  "  He  looks  two  ways  for  Sunday."  IM- 
PROVED. "  One  who,  by  reason  of  the  adverse  disposition 
of  his  optics,  is  forced  to  scrutinize  in  duple  directions  for 
the  Christian  Sabbath." 

ORIGINAL.  "  None  so  deaf  as  them  that  won't  hear." 
IMPROVED.  "  No  persons  are  obtuse  in  their  auricular  ap- 
prehension equal  to  those  who  repudiate  vocal  by  ad- 
verse inclinations." 

"  Root,  hog,  or  die  "  is  rendered,  "  Queen  City  quadru- 
ped, perforate  the  Mother  Earth  with  thy  proboscis,  or 
forever  cease  to  exist." 

"A  still  sow  drinks  the  most  swill"  is,  "That  taciturn 
female  of  the  porcine  genus  which  imbibes  the  richest 
nutriment." 

" Tis  a  wise  child  that  knows  its  own  father."  "That 
juvenile  individual  is  indeed  sage  who  possesses  authen- 
tic information  with  respect  to  the  identity  of  his  parent- 
al derivative." 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.          8 1 

Sam  Patch  could  be  of  no  other  nation  than  that  which 
possesses  Niagara ;  and  he  is  called  by  one  of  our  writers 
"  the  aqueous  Empedocles,  who  dived  for  sublimity  !" 

A  learned  young  lady  the  other  day  astonished  the 
company  by  asking  for  the  loan  of  a  diminutive  argen- 
teous  truncated  cone,  convex  on  its  summit,  and  semi- 
perforated  with  symmetrical  indentations.  She  wanted  a 
thimble. 

A  student's  excuse  to  his  "Alma  Mater"  for  not  re- 
turning as  soon  as  expected  is  in  point :  "  The  circum- 
ambient atmosphere  had  so  far  congealed  the  pellucid 
stream  of  the  river  Potomac  that  I  was  constrained  to 
procrastinate  my  premeditated  egress  through  the  '  Pala- 
tine Province'  of  Maryland  for  the  medical,  chemical, 
and  clinical  co-operation  and  coadjuvancy  of  the  sensi- 
tive sons  of  Esculapius,  whereby  the  morbosity  of  my  pa- 
rental relative,  in  consanguinity,  was  so  far  magnified  as 
to  present  an  entire  extinguishment  of  vivification." 

Of  the  same  quality  is  that  species  of  circumlocution, 
often  resorted  to,  for  hiding  some  unpleasant  fact ;  as 
when  a  jockey  mitigates  the  kicking  habit  of  his  horse. 
"Oh,  he  only  has  a  playful  propensity  of  extending  the 
hinder  hoof,  under  a  slight  reaction  of  the  muscles." 

Instead  of  saying  that  a  boy  was  bitten  by  a  mad  dog, 
it  is  stated  that  he  was  attacked  by  a  dog  while  the  ani- 
mal was  laboring  under  cerebral  excitement. 

Much  of  our  African  humor  takes  this  form,  in  imita- 
tion of  wordy  and  intellectual  white  folks  !  But  the 
crowding  of  this  sesquipedalian  language  into  ordinary 
talk  is  not  confined  to  the  pious  African  gospeler.  Even 
"  Mother  Goose  "  is  made,  like  the  same  bird  in  the  Ger- 
man fable,  to  break  her  neck  in  trying  to  elongate  and 
curve  it  like  the  beautiful  swan.  Mary  and  her  little 

4* 


82  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

lamb  is  rendered,  "  Mary  was  the  happy  possessor  and 
proprietress  of  a  diminutive  incipient  sheep,  whose  outer 
covering  was  as  devoid  of  color  as  congealed  vapor,"  etc. 
Or  the  old  negro  melody,  "  Uncle  Ned,"  the  first  verse 
of  which  runs  thus  : 

"  There  was  an  old  nigger, 

And  his  name  was  Uncle  Ned, 
And  he  died  long  ago,  long  ago." 

It  is  thus  paraphrased  :  "  There  once  existed,  in  years 
gone  by,  an  ancient  and  decrepit  colored  individual  who 
rejoiced  under  the  cognomen  of  Uncle  Edward.  He 
has,  however,  long  since  departed  to  that  bourn  from 
whence  no  traveler  returneth.  His  cranium  was  entire- 
ly destitute  of  the  frizzly  capillary  substance  like  unto 
that  of  a  sheep,  which  fact  is  peculiar  from  its  being  well 
known  that  the  Caput  is  the  particular  location  thereof 
of  the  aforementioned  vegetation.  Uncle  Edward's  dec- 
imal digits  were  like  unto  the  spontaneous  growth  of  the 
cane  on  the  banks  of  the  Lower  Mississippi ;  the  spark- 
ling orbs  that  usually  light  the  countenances  of  all  young 
and  healthy  sons  of  Ham  were  absent ;  and  his  dental 
protuberances  had,  from  long  use,  become  so  thoroughly 
decayed  that  Indian  pone  bread  was  no  longer  a  tempta- 
tion to  the  old  gentleman  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  he  con-, 
sidered  it  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  This  article  of  diet, 
therefore,  was  allowed  to  pass  by  with  perfect  impu- 
nity." 

Not  content  with  making  out  of  "  fish,"  finny  denizens 
of  the  vasty  deep ;  out  of  "  the  foundation  of  a  house,"  the 
substratum  of  the  superstructure;  and  out  of  a  "walk," 
a  promenade  ;  our  word-mongers  "  wollup  "  the  very  don- 
key that  "would  not  go  "  into  an  animal  averse  to  speed  ; 
and  the  encouraging  cry  is,  "Go  on,  Edward  !" 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.          83 

The  opinions  of  our  people  are  always  aggrandized, 
not  only  by  intense  language,  but  by  superadding  to  them 
other  ideas,  until  they  tower  up  beyond  all  verisimilitude. 
The  sober  hue,  the  faithful  outline,  the  correct  perspec- 
tive and  mellow  shading  which  give  relief  by  contrast, 
are  discarded  for  the  glare  and  distortion  which  suit  our 
humor.  An  Englishman  expressed  excited  delight  and 
admiration  at  the  word  "  big  gun/'  applied  to  one  of  our 
best  thinkers. 

Pick  up  a  Southern  paper.  The  editor  wishes  to  say 
that  the  Mississippi  is  very  low.  How  does  he  say  it? 
"  The  cat-fish  are  rigging  up  stern-wheelers  !"  Another 
wishes  to  give  an  idea  of  the  altitude  of  his  Shanghai : 
"  He  is  so  high  that  he  has  to  go  down  on  his  knees  to 
crow." 

A  strange  genius,  describing  a  lake  in  Minnesota :  "  It 
is  so  clear  that  by  looking  into  it  you  can  see  them  mak- 
ing tea  in  China." 

If  any  thing  is  insignificant,  it  is  "the  little  end  of 
nothing  whittled  down  to  a  point."  If  any  thing  is  great, 
it  "beats  thunder,"  or  "all  creation."  Fast?  "Light- 
ning ain't  a  patchin' !"  It  goes  "rippety  click,  in  no 
time."  Our  boys  bet  "  their  life  on  it " — nothing  less. 

An  Illinois  enthusiast  wishes  to  give  you  his  idea  of 
heaven :  "  It  is  an  endless  prairie  of  flowers,  fenced  in 
with  pretty  girls." 

A  Mississippian  brags  to  a  Yankee  about  a  big  tree  he 
chopped  at  for  ten  days,  took  a  walk  around  it  on  Sun- 
day, and  found  a  man  who  had  been  chopping  on  the 
other  side  for  two  weeks !  This  was  before  the  mam- 
moth conifera  of  the  Pacific  were  discovered.  We  know 
now  that  the  only  mistake  in  this  description  is  in  the  lo- 
cation. 


84  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

A  horse  traveled  so  fast  that  his  rider  fancied  he  was 
passing  through  a  grave-yard,  from  the  rapid  succession 
of  mile-stones. 

It  is  doubtful  if  any  language  or  country  furnishes  a 
sample  of  such  an  advertisement  of  a  crack  hotel  as  ap- 
peared in  a  metropolitan  paper.  It  was  the  "  Suitem 
House,'7  by  Strive  &  Sweet,  proprietors : 

"This  hotel  has  been  built  and  arranged  for  the  spe- 
cial comfort  and  convenience  of  summer  boarders.  On 
arrival,  each  guest  will  be  asked  how  he  likes  the  situa- 
tion ;  and  if  he  says  the  hotel  ought  to  have  been  placed 
upon  the  knoll,  or  farther  down  toward  the  village,  the 
location  of  the  house  will  be  immediately  changed.  Cor- 
ner front  rooms,  up  only  one  flight,  for  every  guest. 
Baths,  gas,  hot  and  cold  water,  laundry,  telegraph,  res- 
taurant, fire-alarm,  bar-room,  daily  paper,  coupe',  sewing- 
machine,  grand  piano,  a  clergyman,  and  all  other  mod- 
ern conveniences  in  every  room.  Meals  every  min- 
ute, if  desired,  and  consequently  no  second  table.  En- 
glish, French,  and  German  dictionaries  furnished  to  every 
guest  to  make  up  such  a  bill  of  fare  as  he  may  desire, 
without  regard  to  the  bill  affair  afterward  in  the  office. 
Waiters  of  every  nationality  and  color  desired.  Every 
waiter  furnished  with  a  libretto,  button-hole  bouquet,  full- 
dress  suits,  ball  tablets,  and  his  hair  parted  in  the  mid- 
dle. Every  guest  will  have  the  best  seat  in  the  dining- 
hall  and  the  best  waiter  in  the  house.  Any  guest  not 
getting  his  breakfast  red-hot,  or  experiencing  a  delay  of 
sixteen  seconds  after  giving  his  order  for  dinner,  will 
please  mention  the  fact  to  the  office,  and  the  cook  and 
the  waiters  will  be  blown  from  the  mouths  of  cannon,  in 
front  of  the  hotel,  at  once.  Children  will  be  welcomed 
with  delight,  and  requested  to  bring  hoop -sticks  and 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.          85 

hawkeys  to  bang  the  carved  rose-wood  furniture  especial- 
ly provided  for  that  purpose,  and  peg-tops  to  spin  on  the 
velvet  carpet ;  and  they  will  be  allowed  to  bang  on  the 
piano  at  all  hours,  yell  in  the  halls,  slide  down  the  ban- 
isters, fall  down-stairs,  carry  away  dessert  enough  for  a 
small  family  in  their  pockets  at  dinner,  and  make  them- 
selves as  disagreeable  as  the  fondest  mother  can  desire. 
Washing  allowed  in  rooms,  and  ladies  giving  an  order 
to  '  put  me  on  a  flat-iron/  will  be  put  on  one  at  any  hour 
of  the  day  or  night.  A  discreet  waiter,  who  belongs  to 
the  Masons,  Odd  Fellows,  and  Knights  of  Pythias,  and 
who  was  never  known  even  to  tell  the  time  of  day,  has 
been  employed  to  carry  milk  punches  and  hot  toddies  to 
ladies'  rooms  in  the  evening.  Every  lady  will  be  consid- 
ered the  belle  of  the  house,  and  row-boys  will  answer  the 
bell  promptly.  Should  any  row-boy  fail  to  appear  at  a 
guest's  door  with  a  pitcher  of  ice-water,  more  towels,  a 
gin  cock-tail,  and  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  before  the  guest's 
hand  has  left  the  bell-knob,  he  will  be  branded  '  Front ' 
on  the  forehead,  and  imprisoned  for  life.  The  office 
clerk  has  been  carefully  selected  to  please  every  body, 
and  can  lead  in  prayer;  play  draw-poker;  match  worst- 
ed at  the  village  store ;  shake  for  drinks  at  any  hour,  day 
or  night ;  play  billiards  ;  a  good  waltzer ;  and  can  dance 
the  German ;  make  a  fourth  at  euchre ;  amuse  children ; 
repeat  the  Beecher  trial  from  memory ;  is  a  good  judge 
of  horses ;  as  a  railway  and  steamboat  reference,  is  far 
superior  to  Appleton's  or  any  body  else's  '  Guide ;'  will 
flirt  with  any  young  lady,  and  not  mind  being  cut  dead 
when  '  pa  comes  down ;'  don't  mind  being  damned  any 
more  than  a  Connecticut  river ;  can  room  forty  people  in 
the  best  room  in  the  house  when  the  hotel  is  full ;  attend 
to  the  annunciator ;  and  answer  questions  in  Greek,  He- 


86  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

brew,  Choctaw,  Irish,  or  any  other  polite  language,  at  the 
same  moment  without  turning  a  hair." 

A  Louisianian  demonstrates  the  heat  of  the  weather. 
His  thermometer  got  so  high  it  exploded,  frightening  him 
into  old  age,  killing  one  pointer  dog,  and  wounding  two 
roosters ! 

A  tender,  sensitive  young  female  tells  how  she  felt 
"when  first  he  kissed  her"  — "  like  a  big  tub  of  roses 
swimming  in  honey,  cologne,  nutmeg,  and  blackberries !" 

It  was  an  American  who  first  said  of  a  hard  old  man, 
"  He  don't  breathe  ;  he  ticks."  It  was  an  American  who 
scratched  around  for  an  hour  with  his  night-key,  and  ex- 
claimed, "  Some  one — has  stolen — has  stolen — the  key- 
hole." 

Many  years  ago  I  was  one  of  a  party  in  Washington 
City,  when  South  and  North  vied  with  each  other  in  con- 
vivial  life.  Another  of  the  party  was  General  Dawson, 
member  from  Western  Pennsylvania,  whose  homestead 
was  Albert  Gallatin's  old  home.  He  was  an  admirable 
story-teller.  I  recall  somewhat  sadly,  now  that  he  is 
gone,  how  well  he  illustrated  the  laziness  of  a  class  of 
Virginians.  The  story  was  a  part  of  his  Congressional 
canvassing.  On  one  occasion  he  happened  across  the 
Pennsylvania  line  into  a  little  village  of  Virginia.  He 
was  in  the  midst  of  a  group  around  the  tavern.  While 
treating  and  talking,  a  procession  approached,  which 
looked  like  a  funeral.  He  asked,  who  was  to  be  buried  ? 

"Job  Bowling,"  said  they. 

"  Poor  Job  !"  sighed  the  general.  (He  was  a  good-nat- 
ured, good-for-nothing,  lazy  fellow,  living  on  the  few  fish 
he  caught  and  the  squirrels  he  killed,  but  mostly  on  the 
donations  of  his  neighbors.)  "So  poor  Job  is  dead,  is  he?" 

"  No,  he  ain't  dead,  zactly,"  said  they. 


AMERICAN    HUMOR— ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.          87 

"  Not  dead — not  d —    Yet  you  are  going  to  bury  him  ?" 

"  Fact  is,  general,  he  has  got  too  infernal  all-fired  lazy 
to  live.  We  can't  afford  him  any  more.  He's  got  so 
lazy  that  the  grass  began  to  grow  over  his  shoes — so  ev- 
erlastin'  lazy  that  he  put  out  one  of  his  eyes  to  save  the 
trouble  of  winkin'  when  out  a  gunnin  V 

"  But,"  says  the  general,  "  this  must  not  be.  It  will 
disgrace  my  neighborhood.  Try  him  a  while  longer, 
can't  you  ?" 

"  Can't ;  too  late — coffin  cost  one  dollar  and  a  quar- 
ter. Must  go  on  now." 

About  this  time  the  procession  came  up  and  halted, 
when  the  general  proposed,  if  they  would  let  Job  out,  he 
would  send  over  a  bag  of  corn.  On  this  announcement 
the  lids  of  the  coffin  opened,  and  Job  languidly  sat  up  : 
the  cents  dropped  from  his  eyes  as  he  asked, 

"  Is  the  corn  shelled,  general  ?" 

"No,  not  shelled." 

"Then,"  said  Job,  as  he  lazily  lay  down,  "go  on  with 
the  funeral !" 

Akin  to  this  is  the  exaggerated  story  of  the  miser  and 
the  barber.  The  miser  was  dying,  and  knew  it.  In  a 
voice  that  was  rapidly  growing  weaker : 

"  You — charge — ten  cents — to — shave — live  men  ?" 

"  Yes,  that  is  our  price,"  replied  the  barber. 

"  What — you  charge — to  shave — dead  men  ?" 

"One  dollar,"  said  the  barber,  wondering  what  he 
meant. 

"  Then — shave  me — quick,"  said  the  miser,  nervously 
eying  the  watch  which  the  doctor  held  in  his  hand.  He 
was  too  weak  to  speak  further,  but  the  doctor  interpreted 
aright  the  question  that  was  in  his  eyes. 

"  Fifteen  minutes,"  replied  the  doctor. 


88  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

He  made  a  feeble  motion,  as  with  a  lather-brush,  and 
the  barber  was  at  his  work  in  a  jiffy.  He  performed  his 
task  with  neatness  and  dispatch ;  and  although  the  sick 
man  had  several  sinking  spells  of  an  alarming  nature,  yet 
he  bore  up  to  the  end.  When  the  last  stroke  of  the  ra- 
zor was  given,  the  miser  whispered,  in  tones  of  satisfac- 
tion, " That'll  do — ninety — cents  saved"  and  immediately 
expired. 

MANIFEST   DESTINY   AND    ITS    HUMORS. 

It  matters  little  what  the  idea  is,  only  let  it  be  strongly 
expressed.  Give  the  American  his  theme,  allow  him  cre- 
ation for  the  range  of  his  figures ;  and,  in  the  language 
of  one  of  his  tribe,  he  will  "  stand  one  foot  on  the  Geor- 
gium  Sidus — a  star  which  rolls  in  unfathomable  space — 
and  the  other  upon  the  terrestrial  sphere,  and  bring  down 
the  forked  lightnings." 

Is  it  in  the  objurgatory  vein?  Hear  a  patriot's  un- 
grammatical  philippic  on  Benedict  Arnold :  "  He  was  a 
traitor,  Mr.  Speaker,  who  tried  to  sell  his  country.  It 
was  the  everlastin'  ruination  of  him ;  and  for  what  he 
done  he  will  be  rewarded  with  the  volcanic  eruptions  of 
eternal  infamy,  and  go  down  to  remotest  posterity  kiver- 
ed  all  over  with  hell's  arsenic  !" 

A  country  editor  describes  a  rival  town  in  this  copi- 
ousness of  imagery.  He  said  :  "  It  takes  several  of  their 
pigs  to  pull  a  blade  of  grass,  and  they  are  so  poor  that 
the  foremost  seizes  the  spear  in  his  mouth,  the  balance 
having  taken  each  other  by  the  tail,  when  they  give  a 
pull,  a  strong  pull,  and  a  pull  all  together,  and  if  it 
breaks,  the  whole  tumble  to  the  ground  for  want  of  suffi- 
cient strength  to  support  themselves.  It  takes  three  or 
four  of  them  to  make  a  shadow." 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.          89 

Need  I  refer  you  to  the  sermon  of  the  Baptist  preach- 
er in  Mississippi  ?  Is  it  not  in  every  one's  memory?  It 
will  not  out.  Its  humor  was  so  contagious  that  it  seem- 
ed to  sweep  over  the  American  heart  as  if  the  sainted 
brother  himself  stood  before  us  as  he  "  played  on  a  harp 
of  a  theousand  strings — sperrits  of  just  men  made  per- 
fect !" 

What  would  not  our  exaggerated  and  sacrilegious  au- 
dacity attack? 

When  Crashaw  writes  about  the  marriage -supper  in 
Cana,  that  "  the  conscious  water  saw  its  God  and  blush- 
ed," we  have  all  the  glory  of  imagery;  but  it  is  too  splen- 
did to  call  it  a  sparkle,  too  sacred  to  be  called  wit ;  and 
yet  —  yet  —  how  Young  America  would  joke  on  water, 
mixing  it !  How  the  idea  of  its  blushing  would  strike  his 
irreverent  spirit !  How  its  exaggeration  would  be  aggran- 
dized !  I  once  heard  a  Congressman,  in  debate,  say  that 
the  question  now  agitating  the  age  is,  "  Did  the  prodigal 
come  home  before  he  was  hungry,  or,  being  half  lean, 
come  home  because  the  old  man  had  a  good  fat  calf?" 

I  have  an  extract  from  a  speech  delivered  by  Mr. 
Guild,  of  Erin,  Tennessee,  in  August,  1874,  which  illus- 
trates the  point  suggested  in  a  wild  and  wonderful  way. 
The  orator  is  a  gentleman  of  culture  and  taste.  Perhaps 
his  speech  is  among  the  last  of  the  kind.  He  returned 
to  his  home  in  Tennessee,  and,  surveying  the  changes  of 
the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  he  said :  "  Our  narrow  set- 
tlements, bordering  on  the  Atlantic,  and  running  north 
to  the  lakes,  have  been  in  an  unexampled  manner  ex- 
tended from  ocean  to  ocean,  and  State  upon  State  has 
been  added  to  the  Union,  with  their  teeming  millions. 
'  Westward  the  star  of  empire  takes  its  way/  until  our 
eagle,  grown  with  the  dimensions  of  our  country,  rests 


90  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

his  talons  on  the  loftiest  peaks  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
drops  one  pinion  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  bathes  the  other 
in  the  distant  waters  of  the  Pacific,  and  while  he  is  bill- 
ing and  cooing  Cuba  to  come  and  unite  her  destiny  with 
that  of  the  United  States,  his  tail  is  cooled  by  resting 
upon  the  icebergs  of  the  North."  The  only  defect  in 
this  strain  is,  that  the  eagle  is  not  allowed  to  scream  ! 

What  but  a  sense  of  humor  in  both  speaker  and  audit- 
ors could  possibly  have  carried  off  such  a  speech  as  that 
alleged  to  have  been  made  by  the  great  Webster  ?  "  Men 
of  Rochester,  I  am  glad  to  see  you,  and  I  am  glad  to  see 
your  noble  city.  Gentlemen,  I  saw  your  falls,  which  I 
am  told  are  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high.  That  is  a 
very  interesting  fact.  Gentlemen,  Rome  had  her  Caesar, 
her  Scipio,  her  Brutus,  but  Rome  in  her  proudest  days 
never  had  a  water-fall  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high  ! 
Gentlemen,  Greece  had  her  Pericles,  her  Demosthenes, 
and  her  Socrates,  but  Greece  in  her  palmiest  days  never 
had  a  water-fall  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high !  Men 
of  Rochester,  go  on.  No  people  ever  lost  their  liberties 
who  had  a  water-fall  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high !" 

Not  to  reproduce  illustrations  all  too  familiar,  there  is 
an  extract  which  sums  up  the  case  in  the  "most  unpar- 
relled  "  style.  It  was  intended  as  a  humorous  reply  to 
some  gasconade  of  a  rival  journal  by  an  imaginative  ed- 
itor :  "  This  is  a  glorious  country !  It  has  longer  rivers 
and  more  of  them,  and  they  are  muddier  and  deeper, 
and  run  faster,  and  rise  higher,  and  make  more  noise, 
and  fall  lower,  and  do  more  damage,  than  the  rivers  of 
any  other  country.  It  has  more  lakes,  and  they  are  big- 
ger and  deeper,  and  clearer  and  wetter,  than  those  of 
any  other  country.  Our  rail -cars  are  bigger,  and  run 
faster,  and  pitch  off  the  track  oftener,  and  kill  more  peo- 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.          9 1 

pie,  than  all  other  rail-cars  in  this  and  every  other  coun- 
try. Our  steamboats  carry  bigger  loads,  are  longer  and 
broader,  burst  their  boilers  oftener,  and  send  up  their 
passengers  higher,  and  the  captains  swear  harder  than 
steamboat  captains  in  any  other  country.  Our  men  are 
bigger  and  longer  and  thicker,  can  fight  harder  and  fast- 
er, drink  more  mean  whisky,  chew  more  bad  tobacco,  and 
spit  more  and  spit  farther,  than  in  any  other  country. 
Our  ladies  are  richer,  prettier,  dress  finer,  spend  more 
money,  break  more  hearts,  wear  bigger  hoops,  shorter 
dresses,  and  kick  up  the  devil  generally  to  a  greater  ex- 
tent, than  all  other  ladies  in  all  other  countries.  Our 
children  squall  louder,  grow  faster,  get  too  expansive  for 
their  pantaloons,  and  become  twenty  years  old  sooner 
by  some  months,  than  any  other  children  of  any  other 
country  on  the  earth." 

Dickens  found  one  of  our  representative  men,  and 
named  him  Pogram.  He  is  not  only  to  be  seen  at  the 
centennial  celebrations,  but  it  is  he  who  welcomes  the 
kings  of  the  earth  to  our  shores.  It  is  he  who  speaks 
about  our  flag  that  floats  on  every  sea,  and  our  manufact- 
ures which  embrace  every  product  of  industry.  "Our 
fellow-countryman  is  a  model  of  a  man,  quite  fresh  from 
Natur's  mold,"  said  Mr.  Pogram.  "  He  is  a  true-born 
child  of  this  free  hemisphere ;  verdant  as  the  mountains 
of  our  country,  bright  and  flowing  as  our  mineral  Licks ; 
unspiled  by  withering  conventionalities  as  air  our  broad 
and  boundless  Perearers  !  Rough  he  may  be ;  so  air  our 
Barrs.  Wild  he  may  be  ;  so  air  our  Buffalers.  But  he  is 
a  child  of  Natur  and  a  child  of  Freedom,  and  his  boast- 
ful answer  to  the  despot  and  the  tyrant  is  that  his  bright 
home  is  in  the  Settin'  Sun  !" 

He  is  not  a  personage  of  fiction.     Although  he  is  not 


92  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

what  he  was,  yet  he  lives  still.  Is  there  real  humor  in 
such  extravagance?  One  reason  why  such  displays  are 
humorous  is  that  the  speaker  is  expressing  his  feelings 
far  more  vehemently  than  his  audience  can  go  along  with 
him ;  so  that,  as  Cicero  says  of  such  rhetorical  displays, 
they  seem  like  one  raving  among  the  sane,  or  intoxicated 
amidst  the  sober.  The  orator  is  loaded  to  the  muzzle, 
and  the  recoil  is  comical,  when  he  goes  off. 

Connection  between  the  ideas  is  not  essential,  nor  the 
quantity  of  meaning  conveyed.  A,.drop  of  idea  will  dif- 
fuse itself  through  a  sea  of  verbosity ;  and  the  more 
cloudy  the  idea,  the  greater  the  intensity.  Take  that 
very  dim  idea  of  our  manifest  destiny;  in  what  involu- 
tions of  verbiage  hath  it  not  been  lost?  With  what  com- 
placency the  American  sees  the  nations  march  before  him, 
empires  tremble,  and  crowns  fall  at  his  invincible  feet ! 
In  the  imagery  of  Young  America,  he  takes  a  seat  on  the 
topmost  ridge  of  the  Alleghanies,  one  foot  on  the  Neva- 
das  and  the  other  on  Chimborazo,  smokes  a  long  nine 
with  the  man  in  the  moon,  hears  the  Antilles  roar  respon- 
sive to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  invokes  the  spirit  of  Gen- 
eral Jackson,  hears  the  tramp  of  the  coming  generations, 
and  doesn't  care  a  Continental — cuss  !  That  was  a  char- 
acteristic exaggeration  which  a  Western  drover  attempted 
at  the  Crystal  Palace  to  a  company  who  were  looking  at 
the  statue  of  the  infant  Ptolemy  Lagus,  fed  and  shielded 
by  an  eagle  :  "  It's  a  cussed  Yankee  lie  !  Ptolemy  La- 
gus !  Don't  I  know  ?  I  tell  ye  it's  the  American  eagle 
feeding  young  Sam  with  gravel  stones  to  give  him  grit !" 

The  days  of  our  spread-eagle  oratory  are  nearly  over, 
at  least  in  our  legislative  bodies.  Before  the  war  we  had 
rhetorical  flags  and  emblematic  birds  in  profusion.  The 
last  effort  in  Congress  of  this  kind  was  that  of  a  Louisi- 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.          93 

ana  member  during  the  first  years  of  the  war.  He  made 
a  pathetic  apostrophe  to  the  escutcheon  of  his  State 
above  him,  on  the  painted  glass.  How  touching  his  ap- 
peal to  the  female  pelican  and  the  little  pelicans  feeding 
from  her  breast !  It  was  received  with  titters,  which  en- 
larged into  laughs,  and  the  laughs  into  guffaws.  The 
like  has  not  been  attempted  since.  Congress,  at  least,  is 
growing  fond  of  facts ;  and  when  they  are  humorously 
applied,  it  is  not  afraid  to  roar.  But  the  day  of  Crockett 
and  Mullins  has  departed.  Nothing  which  I  have  col- 
lated in  the  chapters  on  "  Legislative  Humors  "  can  com- 
pare with  a  recent  speech  by  a  member  of  the  Missouri 
Legislature.  It  combines  this  spreading  elocution  with  a 
unique  and  grandiose  jocoseness.  His  theme  is  the  8th 
of  January.  Some  one  objected  to  posting  up  a  hundred 
bills  announcing  that  the  glorious  day  had  arrived.  The 
objection  was  on  the  score  of  economy.  Here  is  his 
retort :  "  The  gentleman  is  suddenly  seized  with  the  '  re- 
trenchment gripes/  and  squirms  around  like  a  long  red 
worm  on  a  pin-hook.  Gentlemen  keep  continually  talk- 
ing about  economy.  I  myself  do  not  believe  in  tying  the 
public  purse  with  cobweb  strings  ;  but  when  retrench- 
ment comes  in  contact  with  patriotism,  it  assumes  the 
form  of  'smallness.'  Such  economy  is  like  that  of  Old 
Skinflint,  who  had  a  pair  of  boots  made  for  his  little  boy 
without  soles,  that  they  might  last  the  longer.  I  rever- 
ence 'the  day  we  celebrate.'  It  is  fraught  with  reminis- 
cences the  most  stirring ;  it  brings  to  mind  one  of  the 
grandest  events  ever  recorded  in  letters  of  living  fire 
upon  the  walls  of  fame  by  the  strong  right  arm  of  the 
god  of  war !  On  such  occasions  we  should  rise  above 
party  lines  and  political  distinctions.  I  never  fought  un- 
der the  banner  of  Old  Hickory,  but,  'by  the  Eternal/  I 


94  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

wish  I  had.  If  the  old  war-horse  was  here  now,  he 
would  not  know  his  own  children  from  the  side  of  Jo- 
seph's coat  of  many  colors — Whigs,  Know-nothings,  Dem- 
ocrats, hard,  soft-boiled,  scrambled,  and  fried — Lincoln- 
ites,  Douglasites,  and  blatherskites  !  I  belong  to  no  par- 
ty ;  I  am  free,  unbridled,  unsaddled,  in  the  political  past- 
ure. Like  a  big  bobtailed  bull  in  fly -time,  I  charge 
around  in  the  high  grass  and  fight  my  own  flies.  Gen- 
tlemen, let  us  show  our  liberality  on  patriotic  occasions. 
Why,  some  men  have  no  more  patriotism  than  you  could 
stuff  in  the  eye  of  a  knitting-needle.  Let  us  not  squeeze 
five  cents  till  the  eagle  on  it  squeals  like  a  locomotive  or 
an  old  maid.  Let  us  print  the  bills,  and  inform  the  coun- 
try that  we  are  as  full  of  patriotism  as  Illinois  swamps 
are  of  tadpoles." 

Of  course,  these  rhetorical  instances  are  rare,  but  they 
are  as  characteristic  of  our  people  as  Mulberry  Sellers 
and  his  "millions,"  or  Hon.  Mr.  Slote  and  his  elevated 
thoughts  of  human  liberty  while  sitting  on  the  back  of 
one  negro,  in  the  play,  while  his  boots  are  blacked  by 
another !  We  have  orators  who  are  witty,  who  do  not 
need  this  extravagant  wing  for  their  flights.  We  have 
political  orators  who  are  quite  sharp  enough  to  make  the 
speech  Sheridan  did  to  the  shoe -makers  of  Stamford 
when  asking  their  votes ;  and  yet  I  doubt  if  they  are  not 
too  sharp  to  risk  such  a  fatal  result  of  wit  as  he  experi- 
enced. He  was  denounced  by  the  irate  shoe-makers  for 
saying,  "  May  the  trade  of  Stamford  be  trampled  under- 
foot of  all  the  world  !" 

I  once  stood  beside  an  American  in  the  Crystal  Pal- 
ace in  London,  in  1851,  when  the  great  organ  in  the  west- 
ern transept  struck  up  "Yankee  Doodle."  He  said  that 
two  Bunker  Hills  were  rising  in  his  bosom  !  He  could 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.          95 

not  express  himself  otherwise,  though  the  remark  was 
palpably  false. 

There  is  something  humorous  in  a  lie,  especially  if  it 
be  a  whopping  one.  It  displays  spirit  and  invention,  and 
the  size  of  it  challenges  our  admiration,  as  if  it  were  a 
Colossus.  Impudence  is  at  the  bottom  of  it,  and  self- 
complacency  helps  it  along. 

That  was  hardly  a  creditable  display  of  youthful  impu- 
dence for  the  lively  urchin  who  accosted  a  drug -store 
man  the  other  day,  "  Mister,  please  gimme  a  stick  licor- 
ice :  your  clerk  goes  with  my  sister."  It  shows  a  heart 
regardless  of  social  duty,  fatally  bent  on  mischief,  but  is 
thoroughly  complacent. 

We  dilate  on  every  prospect,  scientifically  and  individ- 
ually, socially  and  politically.  Miss  Martineau,  in  her 
book  on  America,  says  that  some  of  the  most  extraor- 
dinary instances  of  persons  growing  mentally  awry  are 
among  the  scholars  who  are  thinly  sprinkled  in  the 
Southern  and  Western  settlements.  When  they  first 
went  upon  the  border  they  were  wiser  than  any  one  else  ; 
and  the  impression  of  their  own  wisdom  deepened  with 
every  accident  of  intercourse  with  those  around  them. 
She  particularizes  a  phrenological  professor,  whose  self- 
complacency  was  equal  to  his  vanity.  Lecturing  his 
scholars  on  that  science,  and  when  on  the  topic  of 
Burke's  skull,  he  mentioned  that  it  combined  in  the  most 
perfect  manner  conceivable  all  grand  intellectual  and 
moral  characteristics,  adding  that  only  one  head  has 
been  known  perfectly  to  resemble  it.  The  students  fix 
their  admiring  gaze  on  the  professor's  bald  caput.  He 
congratulates  them  on  their  scientific  discernment.  This 
was  the  scientific  summit  of  impudent  conceit. 

We    succeed    in    self-complacency   and    impudence. 


96  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

Americans  lack  neither  of  these  requisites.  The  coolest 
boy  or  man  in  the  world  is  the  imperturbable  whittling 
Yankee.  In  this  he  copies  and  goes  beyond  the  Norse- 
men. They  had  the  same  misty  and  grand  way  of  saying 
things.  The  jokes  of  the  Sagas  were  broad  and  im- 
mense. One  of  the  old  Scandinavian  poets  says  that  his 
hero  had  so  big  a  beard  that  the  birds  made  nests  in  it ; 
and  he  makes  the  North  Wind  say  that  the  distance  was 
so  great  that  when  it  attempted  to  blow  an  aspen,  it 
couldn't  blow  a  puff  for  clays  afterward.  Our  idea  of 
the  American  eagle  must  be  one  with  the  Giant  of  Edda. 
He  sits  at  the  end  of  the  world  in  eagle  shape,  and  when 
he  flaps  his  wings,  all  the  winds  come  that  blow  on  man. 
In  the  same  spirit  the  American  bounds  his  country  on 
the  east  by  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  on  the  north  by  the  au- 
rora borealis,  on  the  west  by  the  setting  sun,  and  on  the 
south  by  the  Day  of  Judgment. 

There  are  a  thousand  instances,  says  Hazlitt,  in  "  The 
Thousand  and  One  Nights,"  which  are  an  inexhaustible 
mine  of  comic  humor  and  invention,  and  which  from  the 
manners  of  the  East,  which  they  describe,  carry  the  prin- 
ciple of  callous  indifference  in  a  jest  as  far  as  it  can  go. 
But  Oriental  humor  is  tame  compared  to  our  Norse-de- 
scended imperturbability. 

These  exaggerations  are  not,  therefore,  peculiar  to 
America  ;  they  are  composite  ;  they  are  not  merely  made 
up  of  Norse  poetry,  but  there  is  in  them  a  strong  flavor 
of  Celtic  imagery,  and  we  know  that  the  Celt  is  of  the 
Orient,  all  radiant  with  the  superlative.  The  search  into 
the  origin  of  our  language  and  of  our  people  does  much 
to  solve  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  our  humor,  as  of  our 
institutions. 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,  ETC.          97 
MORAL    LESSONS   ON    OUR    HUMOR. 

In  concluding  this  chapter,  not  to  become  didactic, 
but  for  the  practical  application  of  this  analysis  of  our 
humor,  let  us  make  a  few  suggestions  : 

First.  Our  humor  lacks  refinement.  Three-fourths  of  t 
our  humor  will  not  bear  rehearsal  in  the  presence  ofc> 
women.  Gentlemen,  so  called,  even  in  the  company  of 
ladies,  group  together  in  a  corner  to  chuckle  over  some 
"good  one"  which  Smith  or  Jones  has  just  heard,  and 
thinks  too  good  to  be  lost;  or  ladies,  perhaps,  will  have 
their  companions  dragged  off  by  the  button-holing  proc- 
ess to  the  hall,  and  soon  after  their  ears  are  greeted  by 
vociferous  laughter.  ^/Indecency  and  Fun  are  old  cro- 
nies. Horace,  Ariosto,  Montaigne,  Sterne,  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  and  even  Hogarth,  prove  it.  We  have  in  our 
list  of  patents  a  contrivance  for  cleaning  smut  out  of 
wheat.  If  we  would  have  superfine  brands,  we  should 
employ  it  in  our  humor. 

Joseph  C.  Neal,  who  wrote  the  "  Charcoal  Sketches," 
had  a  theory  that  those  of  humorous  genius  were  more 
useful  as  moralists  than  the  gravest  preachers.  Dare  we 
make  the  application  to  our  American  humor  ? 

Secondly.  Our  humor  needs  moderation.  This  it  may 
have  without  losing  its  peculiarities.  To  accomplish  this, 
we  must  study  moderation  in  our  business  and  our  pleas- 
ures. We  wear  out  too  soon.  More  moderation  would 
instill  more  veneration  into  our  youth,  give  more  empha- 
sis to  age,  and  inspire  more  awe  of  the  sacred  relations 
we  sustain  to  our  land,  our  race,  and  our  GodX'The 
otium  known  in  Roman  days,  when  Cicero  and  Sallust 
retired  from  the  forum  and  the  baths  of  the  imperial  city 
to  their  sequestered  villas  at  Baiae,  the  repose  which  the 

5 


98  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

gentler  amenities  of  interchange  give  to  the  mind,  find  no 
counterpart  in  our  midst.  Our  summer  resorts  are  them- 
selves strung  on  extremes.  We  leave  our  homes  to  trav- 
el for  relief,  and  are  glad  to  hurry  back  to  the  partial 
tranquillity  which  they  give. 

With  all  our  greatness,  we  should  be  great  in  a  better 
sense.  Action  is  sublime,  but  godlike  is— repose  !  Our 
enjoyments  in  this  life  ought  to  antedate  the  future  life. 
The  clouds  of  unrest  and  fear,  if  they  can  not  be  dispelled 
in  this  our  sphere,  can  be  fringed  with  luminous  beauty. 
Why  should  we  care  so  much  for  the  fleeting  things 
which  so  warp  our  spirits  and  worry  our  life?  If  we 
think  of  it,  our  star  is  but  a  sand-grain  in  the  vast  spaces, 
and  our  little  life  but  a  watch-tick  in  the  eternal  years  of 
God.  Let  us  while  we  may,  if  not  for  our  own,  yet  for 
the  solace  of  others,  gather  the  roses  of  hilarity,  but  not 
with  such  rude  clutching  as  to  destroy  the  plant  or  dissi- 
pate the  fragrance. 

There  are  some  who  think  no  one  good  or  great  who 
smiles,  and  others  who  think  no  one  good  or  great  who 
does  not  smile.  Each  believes  in  his  peculiarity.  The 
snail  thinks  his  house  a  palace.  This  is  natural  and 
pleasant. 

That  was  a  good  soul,  though  a  German  professor,  who 
doubted  if  the  great  Prussian  king  could  conjugate  a 
Greek  verb  in  pi. 

But  who  wants  the  emotionless  mental  tints  unquick- 
ened  by  sun  or  lightning?  Who  wants  the  half- raised 
eyebrow  and  half-smile,  which  deadens  into  a  smirk  ? 

There  are  those  in  our  midst  so  tinctured  with  Puritan- 
ic austerity  as  to  prefer  frowns  to  dimples,  who  see  noth- 
ing but  levity  in  mirth,  who  find  no  manhood  in  the 
cheerful  heart.  /  There  are  others  who  dive  deeper  into 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.          99 

the  philosophy  of  life,  and,  like  the  old  philosopher,  are 
ever  ready  to  weep  at  the  sorrows  and  even  the  joys  of 
others.  There  are  meditative  men,  who  find  thoughts  too 
deep  for  tears  in  the  flowers  of  the  field.  Far  be  it  from 
me  to  detract  from  the  respect  which  such  grave  intel- 
lects ever  receive  from  the  loftier  intelligences  of  their 
time.  To  an  Omniscient  mind,  holding  in  its  grasp  the 
infinite  relations  which  every  object,  act,  and  thought  sus- 
tains, perhaps  our  sincerest  laughter  is  fraught  with  tears. 
But  God  has  limited  our  vision.  We  see  but  in  part; 
hence  we  see  fragments,  oddities,  and  incongruities ;  and 
Man  alone,  of  all  the  animals,  is  made  a  laughing  creat- 
ure, to  enjoy  them  when  they  come  within  the  range  of 
his  vision. 

Others,  from  similar  generalizations,  find  motives  for 
laughter  in  every  thing,  as  if,  in  the  eye  of  pure  rea- 
son, short-sighted  men  were  continually  playing  fantastic 
tricks,  at  which,  as  the  Germans  boldly  aver,  God  laughs 
almightily. 

But  he  who  always  laughs  is  reckoned  not  less  foolish 
than  he  is  considered  mad  who  always  wails.  Nature,  in 
her  hill  and  dale,  her  night  and  day,  her  cloud  and  sun- 
shine, teaches  that  wise  alternation  which  is  the  golden 
mean  between  these  extremes  of  mood.  Let  the  earnest 
endeavor  alternate  with  the  cheerful  heart.  Let  heroic 
performance  join  with  the  jubilant  soul. 
r  Thirdly.  While  we  moderate,  let  us  enlarge  the  domain 
of  our  humor.  Need  and  greed  are  our  presiding  Ameri- 
can spirits.  If  we  can  not  exorcise  them,  let  us  at  least 
turn  from  them  more  frequently.  The  brawn  and  muscle 
of  America  toil  for  us  day  after  day,  with  how  little  cheer  ! 
These  are  the  builders  of  our  greatness.  '"Why  can  not 
they  have,  as  Thebes  had,  Orphic  music  as  they  build?/ 


100  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

They  deserve  aureoles  of  joy  around  their  sweating  brows. 
Intellect  and  work  have  been  too  long  divorced.  The 
division  of  labor  has  been  carried  from  economy  into  the 
social  conditions  of  life,  so  that  we  hear  of  a  class  of 
thinkers  and  a  class  of  operatives.  Let  the  workman 
think  and^enjoy;  let  the  thinker  work  and  enjoy.  Our 
literature  seems  to  look  to  the  fashionable  city  avenues 
for  its  success,  and  holds  the  mirror  up  to  its  denizens  as 
if  they  were  the  essence  and  end  of  American  manhood. 

Our  humor  needs  to  be  democratized.  Our  genteel 
laughter  needs  crossing  with  that  of  hearty  toil.  The  one 
is  becoming  a  "barren  simper,  a  sniff  and  titter  and 
snicker  from  the  throat  outward,  producing  some  whif- 
fling, husky  cachinnation,  as  if  laughing  through  wool " — 
a  slow,  formal  unpuckering  of  its  mouth  under  cambric, 
and  half  gurgling  its  enjoyment.  Compare  it  with  the 
laugh  of  labor,  as  Carlyle  would  describe  it,  "bursting 
forth  like  the  neighing  of  all  Tattersall's,  tears  streaming 
clown  the  cheeks,  foot  clutched  in  air,  long,  long  continu- 
ing, uncontrollable  —  a  laugh  not  of  the  face  and  dia- 
phragm only,  but  of  the  whole  man,  from  head  to  heel." 

There  is  no  national  platform  like  good  humor.  IfThe 
rich  would  make  the  poor  forget  their  repugnancy,  if  the 
high  would  smooth  the  harsh  prejudices  of  those  below, 
let  them  cultivate  good  humor.  The  joke  is  a  great  un- 
ion element.  If  velvet  paw  can  only  shake  horny  hand 
over  a  joke,  velvet  paw  and  horny  hand  are  a  community 
at  once  of  equal  franchises. 

If  our  humor  were  thoroughly  crossed  and  largely  dif- 
fused, the  treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils  of  politics 
would  lose  their  terror  ;  certainly  sectional  asperities  and 
public  discussions  would  lose  their  wrinkled  front.  From 
the  forum,  the  street,  the  office,  our  humor  would  be 


AMERICAN    HUMOR — ITS    EXTRAVAGANCE,   ETC.       TO  I 

transplanted  to  the  gardens  of  home.  Thus  purified 
around  the  hearth-stone  and  at  the  daily  meal,  it  would 
unshadow  our  brow,  and,  along  with  those  rarer  blooms 
of  domestic  love,  spread  forth  from  its  rich  treasury  of  hue 
and  aroma  its  graces  to  make  the  world  less  mournful. 


WHY   WE    LAUGH. 


V. 

HUMORS  AND  THEIR  SYNONYMS. 

"  E  voi  ridete  ?     Certo  ridiamo. — 
Cost  fan  tuttL" 

IN  a  previous  chapter  the  word  "humor"  was  defined. 
Its  derived  sense  was  traced  down  to  its  present  mean- 
ing. My  present  title  is  in  the  same  vein,  although  the 
plural  number,  "humors,"  is  rather  ambiguous.  A  hu- 
mor is  not  always  the  quality  of  the  mind  we  call  humor. 
A  humor  may  be  a  particular  mannerism  ;  a  humor  may 
not  be  funny,  but  humor  is.  In  the  old  days,  when  our 
language  was  plastic,  and  while  it  was  being  molded,  any 
incongruity,  caprice,  or  singularity  was  called  a  humor. 
No  one  word  was  ever  more  tortured ;  and  yet  all  now 
understand  it.  It  is  not  worth  considering  —  as  many 
have — whether  a  man's  prevalent  characteristic,  or  mood, 
is  the  result  of  his  temperament ;  or  by  what  term  his 
native  disposition  should  be  called. 

There  is  no  real  anomaly  in  humor.  It  is  regulated  by 
a  law  of  eccentricity  as  much  as  reason.  In  its  best  dem- 
onstration, it  is  reason  ;  at  least,  it  is  a  species  of  wit,  if 
not  wit  itself.  "  Every  Man  in  his  Humor  "  is  the  very 
comedy  of  life ;  but  every  man  having  a  humor  implies 
that  humor  is  as  much  a  portion  of  our  common  human 
nature  as  imagination. 

I  have  already  given  the  philology  of  the  word  "  hu- 
mor." Its  synonyms  are  not  less  indicative  of  certain 
dignities  and  values.  Nothing  in  derogation  is  meant, 


HUMORS   AND   THEIR   SYNONYMS.  103 

when  we  trace  it,  further,  from  a  Greek  word,  vw — "to 
rain" — or  humus,  the  ground;  or  moisture,  or  juice,  or 
liquor,  or  any  thing  else  which  by  distillation  becomes 
precious. 

The  rose  is  beautiful ;  but  its  perfume,  or  its  "  ottar,"  is 
almost  beyond  price.  The  important  and  essential  natu- 
ral elements  are  humors.  Oxygen  is  the  insoluble  humor, 
the  last  molecule.  The  humors  of  the  eye  give  us  the 
glories  of  nature  and  the  forms  of  friends.  Water  itself 
is  humor,  or  liquid,  though  sometimes  differently,  or  in- 
differently, regarded.  The  very  word  jus  is  juice,  and 
justice  is  divine !  It  is  especially  and  celestially  ele- 
vated when  poured  out  and  impearled  with  the  wit  which 
sparkles  upon  the  beaker's  brim.  Is  it  far-fetched  to  as- 
sume that  these,  our  fountains  of  humorous  philology, 
are  fringed  with  flowers  ?  or  that  their  surface  is  embroid- 
ered by  woven  sunlight,  checkered  by  the  shadows  of  fo- 
liage ?  In  plain  words,  these  very  definitions  indicate  the 
shine  and  health  of  generous  natures.  Sometimes,  as  the 
subordinate  synonyms  show,  the  sheen  is  dimmed ;  and 
often  the  health  is  spleen  ;  but,  even  in  its  derivations 
and  deviations,  is  not  something  of  the  origin  of  our  sub- 
ject still  traceable  ?  Follow  the  stream  from  its  source — 
dashing  out  in  wit  (or  knowledge) ;  wandering  at  its  own 
sweet  will  pleasingly,  as  in  humor ;  sporting  in  caprice, 
caricature,  jokes,  and  jests  along  the  greensward  •  or 
playing  in  odd,  quiet  eddies  and  nooks,  as  in  drollery  and 
facetiae ;  or  dipping  under-ground,  as  in  eipwvda  (irony) ; 
or  leaping  and  laughing  with  burlesque  and  buffoonery,  in 
roaring  cascades ;  or  compacted  between  rough,  bruising 
rocks,  as  in  sarcasm  ;  or  seethingly  irate,  as  in  satire  (sat 
and  ird) — whatever  may  be  the  shades  of  meaning  of 
these  phrases,  we  will  ignore  the  metaphysics,  and  out  of 


104  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

all  "  brilliant  association  and  comparison "  educe  wit, 
and  out  of  all  "  contrast  and  incongruity,"  humor.  Thus, 
by  combination,  we  reach  a  fair  definition  of  the  highest 
object  of  human  expression,  applied  to  life.  We  reach 
that  which  raises  our  nature  above  its  level,  by  pleasant 
pictures  and  agreeable  visions. 

Our  word-mongers  may  tell  us  that  wit  is  spoken,  while 
humor  is  both  acted  and  spoken.  But  this  confuses  the 
nomen  generalissimum.  Whether  acted  or  spoken  ;  wheth- 
er it  is  in  a  word,  a  gesture,  or  a  wink,  or  in  "brilliant 
flashes  of  silence ;"  whether  it  comes  from  learning,  or 
whether  it  is  common  to  all ;  whether  it  makes  one 
smirk  or  smile ;  whether  it  is  only  verbal,  as  in  a  pun,  or 
upon  stilts,  as  in  affected  facetiousness ;  whether  it  post- 
ures and  mimics,  as  in  the  artificial  foolery  of  the  African 
minstrel ;  whether  it  distorts  to  amuse,  or,  by  feigned  ad- 
miration and  pleasant  trader-statement,  it  ridicules,  like 
Socrates,  or  shows  its  teeth  and  bites  the  flesh,  like  a 
"vulture  of  the  mind,"  as  in  satire,  or  in  Juvenal ;  wheth- 
er it  insinuates  and  loves  fun  with  the  jocular,  or  makes 
and  pokes  fun  with  the  jocose,  or  indulges  in  plaisanterie 
by  personal  raillery,  or  felicitously  modifies  its  disparage- 
ment of  others ;  whether  it  is  defined  by  Locke,  Swift, 
Shakspeare,  Hobbes,  Hazlitt,  or  Goldsmith,  or  by  the  un- 
abridged chorus  of  all  humorous  literature — we  know  of 
it,  as  the  well-named  poet,  Gay,  says  of  it,  that  it  ever 
moves  our  airy  senses  to  pleasant  laughter. 

All  we  care  to  know,  for  this  analysis,  is  that  this  ele- 
ment is  a  bias  of  the  mind,  depending  neither  on  culture 
nor  affectation,  but  on  solid  human  nature,  in  all  its  con- 
ditions and  societies. 

When,  therefore,  this  chapter  is  headed  "Humors,"  it 
is  meant  to  comprehend  not  alone  the  collective  idiosyn- 


HUMORS   AND   THEIR   SYNONYMS.  105 

crasy  of  bodies  of  men,  but  the  peculiar  fancies,  fun,  wit, 
and  manners  which  obtain  with  the  individual  members 
of  society. 

What  an  endless  opportunity  is  here  to  study  the 
changeful  phases  of  human  life  !  When  all  the  interests 
of  freedom  and  property  are  in  question ;  when  vanity, 
selfishness,  pride,  and  power  are  in  constant  mental  scuf- 
fle, there  must  be  evolved  a  mosaic  of  infinite  hue  and 
configuration.  Modern  chemistry,  outvying  ancient  skill, 
has  set  aside  the  natural  marble  and  shell  for  the  mosaic, 
and  has  given  fresh  beauty  and  added  vivacity  to  this 
branch  of  art ;  so  that  our  transparent  enamels  now  fur- 
nish seventeen  thousand  shades  of  color.  The  looms  for 
the  Gobelin  tapestry  bewilder  the  beholder  with  their  in- 
finitesimal gradations  of  hue.  How  have  the  seven  hues 
of  the  prism  been  modified  and  multiplied  by  genius  and 
patience  !  Yet  who  can  compare  such  finite  displays  of 
mere  outward  art  to  the  endless  variety  of  emotions  which 
moves  the  muscle  and  charms  the  mind  by  the  piquant 
attrition  of  mind  with  mind  in  the  society  of  gifted  men  ? 

As  in  the  human  body,  so  in  deliberative  bodies — the 
more  violent  the  fit,  either  of  laughter  or  anger,  the  more 
complete  and  general  are  the  union  and  movement  of 
the  muscles.  What  a  combination  of  muscles  of  the  face 
alone  is  required  to  wreathe  it  in  smiles !  Sixteen  mus- 
cles join  in  jollity,  from  the  occipito-frontalis  to  the  com- 
pressor nasi ;  from  the  zygomaticus,-vi\Tic\\.  makes  a  smile 
to  write  it,  to  the  platysma  myodes,  which  makes  another 
to  pronounce  it.  Then  the  forehead  and  eyebrow  play 
their  part,  as  leading  members,  while  the  corrugator  su- 
percilii,  as  its  caustic  name  signifies^  accompanies  the  na- 
sal group  in  a  smile  with  a  most  French-like,  if  not  sar- 
castic, shrug.  Then  the  eye !  Imagine  a  man  laughing 

5* 


106  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

without  his  eyes  as  coadjutors  !  One  should  be  afraid  of 
him  who  can  not,  or  does  not,  peep,  if  not  shut  his  eyes, 
in  the  act.  An  open-eyed  laugh  is  a  fraud.  He  who 
thus  laughs  has  a  demon.  This  ocular  group,  like  seven 
sisters,  holding  each  other  by  the  hand  lovingly,  now 
dancing  ojbliquely  and  now  to  the  front,  up,  down,  and 
around — these  help,  like  the  body  of  an  assembly,  the 
mouth,  the  centre  of  expression.  This  organ  is  the  ob- 
ject of  most  interest ;  for  is  it  not  the  orator  of  every  oc- 
casion ?  Out  of  it  proceed  the  curse  and  the  kiss,  much 
bitterness,  but  much  blessing.  From  it  came  the  revil- 
ings  of  the  Judean  mob  and  the  beatitudes  of  the  Mount. 
Who  is  it  that  calls  the  lips  "  tell-tales  ?"  It  is  meant 
in  no  superficial  sense ;  for  as  the  years  wane,  and  pas- 
sions have  shaped  their  form  and  surroundings,  they  tell 
the  tale  of  good  humor  as  well  as  bad.  A  continued  se- 
ries of  lip-movements  forms  a  habit  which  no  affectation 
or  hypocrisy  can  hide.  There  is  much  expression  in  the 
eye  ;  but  for  the  generous  and  frank,  the  tender  and  true, 
the  dimpling  delight  and  darling  solicitude,  commend  us 
to  the  mouth  ! 

Yet  all  these  muscles,  with  their  laughing  functions, 
and  the  others  which  wait  on  them,  from  top  to  toe,  are 
almost  expressionless  in  repose.  Start  or  startle  them 
with  a  pleasant  idea,  and  how  their  defiant  music  rises, 
out  of  almost  noiseless  chuckle,  into  a  resounding  diapa- 
son like  the  league-long  laugh  of  the  breakers  upon  the 
shore !  So,  too,  as  in  the  physical  body,  on  some  occa- 
sions the  muscles  are  rigid  and  serene,  while  on  others 
they  are  as  mobile  and  contortionate  as  those  of  the 
stage-tumbler,  of  whom  we  are  never  sure  when  he  will 
be  on  head  or  heels.  And  the  analogy  holds  with  assem- 
blies. 


LEGISLATIVE   AND   ORATORICAL    HUMORS.  1 07 


VI. 

LEGISLATIVE  AND  ORATORICAL  HUMORS— ARE 
THEY  LOST  ARTS  ? 

"  The  golden  chain  of  Jove  was  nothing  but  a  succession  of  laughs 
— a  chromatic  scale  of  merriment,  reaching  from  earth  to  Olympus." 
— DOUGLAS  JERROLD. 

TAKING  up  the  thread  from  the  preceding  chapter,  it 
may  be  said  that  certain  legislatures  have  had  peculiar 
humors  and  characteristics.  One  is  intellectual,  one  in- 
dustrious, one  stupid,  one  jolly,  one  lazy,  one  fond  of  this 
or  that  recreation;  and  on  different  days,  and  at  differ- 
ent hours,  such  collective  bodies,  like  our  human  bodies, 
show  peculiar  sensibilities.  We  have  known  speakers, 
chairmen  of  committees — the  whole  House  itself— in  its 
every  muscular  and  mental  fibre,  to  be  so  cross  one  day 
that  they  could  not  deliberate,  and  so  jocund  on  another 
that  they  would  not  work.  The  Speaker  may  be  dyspep- 
tic one  day  and  the  House  good-natured,  or  vice  versd. 
On  one  day  the  depressor  alee,  nasi  is  active,  and  on  an- 
other the  buccinator;  and  as  one  or  the  other  predomi- 
nates, so  the  House  has  its  shades,  or,  rather,  varied 
lights,  of  humor.  All  will  agree,  however,  that  legisla- 
tures have  an  individuality.  We  call  them  good,  or  bad, 
or  average,  according  to  their  work,  mood,  and  ability. 
The  best  of  these  bodies,  however,  is  good-tempered, 
even  when  not  so  able.  In  the  time  of  Henry  IV.  one 
parliament  was  styled  Parliamentum  Indoctorum,  or  the 
Lack-learning  Parliament.  It  was  this  Parliament  that 


IOS  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

went  iii  a  body  to  the  king  to  ask  that  the  clergy  be 
obliged  to  pay  a  part  of  the  taxes  out  of  their  estates. 
The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  being  present,  said, "  To 
strip  the  clergy  thus  would  put  a  stop  to  their  prayers." 
Upon  this,  Mr.  Speaker  Esturmy,  the  founder  of  the  Som- 
ersets, smiling,  said,  "  The  prayers  of  the  Church,  I  fear, 
are  a  slender  supply."  We  are  not  told  how  his  grace 
took  the  allusion,  but  his  majesty  (Prince  Hal)  evidently 
smiled ;  for  are  we  not  told  that  the  Speaker  at  that  time 
had  been  appointed  chief  butler  to  the  king?  He  who 
furnished  the  wit  furnished  the  wine.  If  this  Parliament, 
presided  over  by  this  lover  of  wine  and  maker  of  wit,  was 
the  illiterate  parliament,  we  need  more  such  parliaments, 
for  its  members  voted  against  making  themselves  collect- 
ors of  subsidies,  and  made  the  interests  of  their  constitu- 
ents their  own  !  "At  the  same  time,"  says  Walsingham, 
"  they  took  care  that  no  useless  grants  or  pensions  should 
be  made  from  the  crown  to  impoverish  the  revenue." 
And  we  may  add  that  they  had  a  speaker  who  scorned 
political  danger  when  ruin  and  death  encompassed  him. 
Besides,  he  did  not  disdain  to  "smile."  Tout  cela  est 
change.  The  Speaker  must  now  be  as  grave  as  a  tomb- 
stone. If  such  results  flow  from  illiterate  parliaments 
and  witty  speakers,  let  us  have  congresses  of  less  preten- 
sion, and  speakers  with  genial  souls  ! 

Properly  to  show  these  collective  and  individual  hu- 
mors, we  take  the  license  of  the  subject  to  call  in  prece- 
dent and  illustration  from  all  legislatures.  Thus  the  ludi- 
crous incongruities  of  assemblies  of  men,  as  well  as  their 
individual  eccentricities,  may  be  properly  bundled  in  one 
plural  noun — "humors." 

In  considering  the  humor  of  a  deliberative  body,  often 
engaged  in  friendly  contest,  and  liable  at  a  moment  to 


LEGISLATIVE   AND   ORATORICAL    HUMORS.  1 09 

be  whirled  out  of  eddies  of  good  temper  into  the  turbu- 
lent and  yellow  currents  of  partisan  spite  and  personal 
antagonisms,  great  allowances  are  to  be  made  in  deciding 
upon  the  flavor  or  genuineness  of  the  brand  of  humor. 
It  is  no  test  that  the  spoken  word  is  a  momentary  hit,  or 
that  the  hit  hurts,  or  that  the  victim  winces.  The  wit 
may  give  a  temporary  delight  and  exaltation,  and  the 
humor  may  be  enjoyed  by  the  victor.  A  better  test  to 
be  applied  to  the  parentheses  of  "  laughter  "  as  well  as 
"  cheers  "  is  that  of  time.  The  best  test,  as  I  have  urged, 
is  translatability  into  a  foreign  tongue.  The  "laughter 
of  hate  and  the  hisses  of  scorn  "  which  burden  our  Con- 
gressional literature  are  not  the  highest  evidences  of  the 
best  humor  or  of  genuine  wit.  It  was  not  always  that 
Randolph's  sarcasm,  Tristam  Burgess's  invective,  John  P. 
Hale's  waggery,  Thaddeus  Stevens's  irony,  old  Ben  Har- 
din's  fun,  Corwin's  drollery,  Senator  Edmunds's  epigram, 
or  General  Nye's  anecdote,  produced  unanimous  good 
spirit.  Such  results  are  generally  won  upon  themes  out- 
side of  party  polemics.  They  are  attained  only  when  the 
object  of  the  humor  agrees  with  both  sides  and  with  the 
orator. 

Sometimes  the  loudest  laughter  is  provoked  by  the 
emptiest  conceit.  When  examined,  the  conceit  is  found 
to  be  a  gushing  boast  of  consistency,  or  an  empty  antici- 
pation of  victory ;  and  this,  owing  to  the  vicissitudes  of 
politics,  is  a  ticklish  theme  for  vaticination. 

When  a  gifted  member  of  Congress,  before  the  terri- 
ble thrashing  of  his  party  in  1840,  amused  the  House  by 
representing  a  Democrat  as  one  whom  he  met  going  out 
to  hew  wooden  razors  with  a  broad-axe  to  shave  dead 
Whigs  with  in  the  fall,  one  fails  to  discern  either  the  con- 
gruity  of  the  metaphors  or  the  brilliancy  of  the  wit,  though 


110  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

the  fun  that  followed  fast  followed  still  faster  when  it  was 
said  that  their  hard  cider  would  turn  into  sour  milk, 
which  was  a  little  acidulous  then,  and  would  be  very  sour 
when  the  elections  ended  !  Alas  for  the  prophetic  humor 
of  the  sanguine  and  impulsive  hustings,  and  of  the  tem- 
porary "  spanking  "  majority  ! 

There  is  a  humor  which,  even  when  genuine,  makes 
one  melancholy.  Swift's  wit  made  Thackeray  sad.  In 
an  assembly  representing  the  whole  people  one  must  not 
expect  the  superfine,  or  always  the  fine,  or  even  middling 
brands.  In  such  an  assembly  all  classes  of  minds  meet, 
especially  extremes.  One  might  apply  to  it  the  Ion  mot 
of  Jerrold  :  A  gourmet  asks  a  company  to  guess  what  had 
been  his  dinner  ?  They  fail  to  guess.  "  Why,  calf  s-head 
soup  !"  "  Ah,"  said  the  wit,  "extremes  meet."  Legisla- 
tive bodies  are  not  exempt,  collectively  and  individually, 
from  Shakspeare's  description  : 

"  Nature  hath  fram'd  strange  fellows  in  her  time  ; 
Some  that  will  evermore  peep  through  their  eyes, 
And  laugh,  like  parrots,  at  a  bagpiper ; 
And  other  of  such  vinegar  aspect 
That  they'll  not  show  their  teeth  in  way  of  smile, 
Though  Nestor  swear  the  jest  be  laughable." 

In  a  body  as  grave  as  Congress,  the  fun  is  not  always 
and  at  once  apparent.  The  gravity  of  such  a  body  pre- 
cludes levity.  A  child's  toy  may  ripple  the  pond,  but 
Neptune  only  arouses  a  tumult  on  the  sea.  It  requires 
an  effort  to  overcome  ponderosity.  To  raise  a  laugh  is 
to  lift  the  weight  of  dignity — nay,  to  lift  the  weight  off  of 
dignity.  Humor  always  starts  handicapped  in  large  as- 
semblies. Upon  their  proceedings  hang,  not  trifles,  but 
momentous  things.  But  may  not  the  very  froth  and 
sparkle  of  the  wave  indicate  its  strength  and  depth  ?  He 


LEGISLATIVE   AND    ORATORICAL    HUMORS.  Ill 

only  is  a  philosopher  who,  looking  at  the  sea,  not  only 
dives  into  its  imperturbable  profundity,  but  observes  its 
eccentric  currents  and  superficial  buoyancy.  No  one 
should  underrate  the  dignity  and  influence  of  a  Congress 
like  ours,  representing,  as  it  does  to-day,  nearly  a  half-hun- 
dred millions,  with  a  history  nearly  centennial,  and  speak- 
ing for  a  territory  having  such  varied  and  discordant  in- 
terests, because  evidences  of  humor  were  not  apparent  in 
its  earliest  period.  Is  it  a  vain  ceremony  to  open  the 
deliberations  of  such  a  body  with  prayer  to  the  Supreme 
Being?  Even  when  the  nation  numbered  but  three  or 
four  millions,  and  but  a  third  of  the  present  number  of 
States,  it  was  laying  the  foundation  of  empires.  There 
was  a  solemnity  about  its  first  assemblages. 

OUR   REVOLUTIONARY   HUMOR. 

The  first  Congress  met  in  the  spring  of  1789.  Nearly 
a  month  elapsed  before  it  had  a  quorum.  Its  first  act 
was  no  jocular  matter — that  of  counting  the  votes  of  the 
electors  which  proclaimed  "  George  Washington,  Esq.," 
President  of  the  young  republic.  It  was  in  no  playful 
mood  that  Congress  declared  him  our  first  President.  A 
few  days  afterward,  Federal  Hall,  at  the  corner  of  Nassau 
and  Wall  streets,  New  York  City,  was  tendered  to  this 
grave  body.  Soon  thereafter  the  rules  for  its  conduct 
were  adopted.  Were  there  no  smiling  genii,  such  as  are 
conversant  with  our  recent  Congresses,  to  squint  a  rogu- 
ish eye  from  a  reporters'  gallery  at  that  solemn  primary 
rule  "that  no  member  should  speak  to  another,  or  read 
any  printed  paper,  when  any  member  is  speaking  ?" 

There  were  great  anxieties  in  that  opening  Congress. 
In  very  deed,  the  "  eyes  of  the  world  "  were  directed  to 
it.  The  effervescence  of  the  festive  writers  of  our  dav 


112  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

would  have  been  strangely  out  of  place  there.  Under 
most  interesting  associations,  and  into  that  octagonal 
hall,  whose  damask  hangings  gave  richness  and  tone  to 
the  scene,  and  attended  to  the  gallery  in  front  of  the  Sen- 
ate-chamber by  John  Adams,  the  Vice-president,  and  Sen- 
ators, and  by  Mr.  Speaker  Muhlenberg  and  the  Repre- 
sentatives, there  is  ushered  the  august  form  of  Washing- 
ton. The  oath  is  administered  by  the  Chancellor  of  New 
York.  Proclamation  is  made  :  "  Long  live  George  Wash- 
ington, President  of  the  United  States !"  The  solemn 
consecrations  then  begin  for  the  American  Congress. 
The  weighty  and  untried  duties,  the  dangers  of  disunited 
counsels,  the  invocation  to  the  Divine  Parent  of  social 
order  and  of  the  human  race — these  give  added  concern, 
fear,  and  piety  to  the  momentous  ceremony  of  this  cru- 
cial period  and  the  deliberations  of  our  first  Congress. 

\Vas  there  nothing  to  relieve  the  serious  dignity  of 
these  solemn  proceedings  ?  Was  the  triumphal  progress 
of  Washington  from  Mount  Vernon  to  New  York  only  a 
solemn  and  sacred  pilgrimage  ?  Where  was  Hopkinson  ? 
Was  his  comic  muse,  that  had  sung  the  "Battle  of  the 
Kegs,"  mute  ?  The  truth  is  that  there  was  something  like 
a  sporadic  laugh  here  and  there,  and  even  indecorously, 
as  we  now  think,  at  Pater  Patrice  himself.  The  aristo- 
cratic pretensions  of  some  of  the  fussy  actors,  and  their 
efforts  to  ape  royalty  in  preparing  for  the  inauguration, 
with  its  pomp  and  show,  brought  out  many  a  jest.  Fed- 
eral Hall  was  a  sort  of  Athenian  oroa.  There  the  gossip 
and  wit  of  New  York  met.  There,  as  even  now,  at  the 
corner  of  Wall  and  Nassau,  speculators  most  did  congre- 
gate. It  was  their  Rialto.  How  these  plebeians  ridi- 
culed the  anxious  patricians,  bent  on  decorations,  titles, 
and  places  of  honor !  In  a  letter  from  John  Armstrong 


LEGISLATIVE   AND   ORATORICAL    HUMORS.  113 

to  General  Gates  this  is  more  than  hinted.  Even  Roger 
Sherman  endeavored  to  devise  some  style  of  address 
more  novel  and  dignified  than  "Excellency."  We  are 
told  that  a  caricature  appeared  called  "  The  Entry,"  and 
that  it  was  full  of  "profane  allusions."  It  represented 
Washington  mounted  on  an  ass,  and  in  the  arms  of  his 
man  Billy,  Humphreys  leading  the  jack,  and  chanting 
hosannas. 

This  humor  had  some  foundation  for  its  fun.  It  gath- 
ered in  the  lobbies  of  Federal  Hall,  crept  crinkling  into 
Congress,  and  had  its  amusing  influence  on  legislation. 
Dr.  Griswold,  in  his  Republican  Court,  tells  a  Congression- 
al anecdote  at  the  expense  of  Washington,  in  relation  to 
his  title  : 

"  General  Muhlenberg  states  that  Washington  himself 
was  in  favor  of  the  style  of  '  High  Mightiness,'  used  by 
the  Stadtholder  of  Holland,  and  that  while  the  subject 
was  under  discussion  in  Congress  he  dined  with  the  Pres- 
ident, and,  by  a  jest  about  it,  for  a  time  lost  his  friend- 
ship. Among  the  guests  was  Mr.  Wynkoop,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, who  was  noticeable  for  his  large  and  commanding 
figure.  The  resolutions  before  the  two  Houses  being  re- 
ferred to,  the  President,  in  his  usual  dignified  manner, 
said,  '  Well,  General  Muhlenberg,  what  do  you  think  of 
the  title  of  High  Mightiness  ?'  Muhlenberg  answered, 
laughing,  *  Why,  general,  if  we  were  certain  that  the  office 
would  always  be  held  by  men  as  large  as  yourself  or  my 
friend  Wynkoop,  it  would  be  appropriate  enough ;  but  if 
by  chance  a  President  as  small  as  my  opposite  neighbor 
should  be  elected,  it  would  become  ridiculous.'  This 
evasive  reply  excited  some  merriment  about  the  table ; 
but  the  chief  looked  grave,  and  his  evident  displeasure 
was  increased  soon  after  by  Muhlenberg's  vote  in  the 


114  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

House  of  Representatives  against  conferring  any  title 
whatever  upon  the  President." 

This  is  not  the  first  time  the  point  has  been  made  on 
titles.  It  was  again  made  by  a  Pennsylvanian  in  1852. 
The  accomplished  member  from  the  Quaker  City,  Joseph 
R.  Chandler,  proposed  to  insert  "  lord  "  before  "  lieuten- 
ant-general," as  a  further  feather  in  General  Scott's  cap. 
"  If  we  do  any  thing,"  he  argued,  "  let  us  give  the  poetry 
that  belongs  to  the  old  heraldry  of  the  nobility  which  our 
fathers  threw  off  when  they  framed  this  plain,  drab-color- 
ed Constitution." 

The  wit  of  Mr.  Chandler  was  more  acceptable  than 
that  of  his  predecessor.  Indeed,  the  Revolutionary  days 
are  in  this  particular  in  marked  contrast  with  the  pres- 
ent. Many  a  time  have  I  heard,  in  a  call  of  the  House, 
amidst  all  possible  confusion,  irreverent  jokes  about 
"  George,"  and  propositions  of  mock  patriotism,  such  as 
to  read  the  "  Farewell  Address."  They  made  the  House 
irreverently  jubilant. 

M.  Brissot,  a  traveling  French  gentleman  of  that  day, 
wrote  that  the  presence  of  Congress  in  New  York  con- 
tributed much  to  extend  the  ravages  of  luxury,  including 
the  habit  of  smoking,  which  had  not  disappeared  with 
other  Dutch  customs ;  "  for  they  use  cigars,"  he  said, 
"without  the  use  of  an  instrument,  as  it  accustoms  to 
meditation  and  prevents  loquacity."  Happy,  hilarious 
habit !  No  previous  question  ;  only  a  smoke  to  second 
the  demand  against  loquacity. 

Mr.  Niles,  in  his  preface  to  his  "Register,"  in  1816, 
says  that  the  patriots  of  the  Revolution  did  not  make 
speeches  to  be  unattended  to  by  their  brethren  in  Con- 
gress, and  fill  up  the  columns  of  a  newspaper ;  that  they 
only  spoke  when  they  had  something  to  say,  and  pre- 


LEGISLATIVE   AND    ORATORICAL    HUMORS.  115 

ferred  acting  to  talking— very  unlike  the  legislators  of  the 
present  time.  The  speeches,  which  were  soul -stirring 
then,  were  pronounced  to  be  heard,  and  not  to  be  pub- 
lished. But  while  he  grows  thus  indignant  over  the  vol- 
uble patriots  of  1816,  he  takes  care  to  prove  that  if  our 
early  Congress  did  not  themselves  have  and  express  hu- 
mor, they  were,  like  Falstaff,  the  cause  of  it  in  others. 
Mr.  Niles  is  pleased  to  recall  this  trenchant  anecdote  of 
that  early  day  :  The  Earl  of  Dartmouth  asked  an  Ameri- 
can in  London  of  how  many  members  the  first  Congress 
consisted.  The  reply  was,  "  Fifty-two."  "  Why,  that  is 
the  number  of  cards  in  a  pack,"  said  his  lordship.  "  How 
many  knaves  are  there?"  "Not  one,"  returned  the  re- 
publican. "Please  to  recollect  that  knaves  are  court- 
cards." 

Certainly  our  early  Congressmen  did  not  lack  humor. 
We  may  lack  many  of  the  evidences  of  this  humor,  for  the 
debates  which  followed  for  many  years  after  this  first  in- 
auguration, either  because  the  stenographers  were  not 
abroad,  or  because  of  the  brevity  and  meagreness  of  the 
records,  show  little  or  none  of  the  pyrotechnics  with 
which  the  press  of  to-day  scintillates,  and  none  of  the 
boisterous  brackets  which  indicate  the  mirthful  provo- 
cation. Even  our  best  Revolutionary  humorist,  Frank- 
lin, clothed  his  fun  in  allegory  and  story.  Indeed,  the 
Senate  sat  with  closed  doors  for  five  years  after  its  or- 
ganization. It  was  a  secret  body  for  all  business,  execu- 
tive and  legislative.  The  record  which  transpired  is  all 
too  brief  of  those  years.  It  does  not  indicate  whether 
the  fathers  held  high  carnival  in  their  seclusion,  or,  if 
they  did,  how  they  held  it.  We  are  left  to  conjecture. 
Were  they  always  pompous  and  sedate  ?  May  not  the 
builders  of  our  Government,  like  those  of  other  Govern- 


Il6  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

ments,  have  had  their  rejoicings  ?  Out  of  their  exuberant 
spirits,  may  not  Momus  have  had  his  heyday?  Thebes 
is  fabled  to  have  been  built  to  the  music  of  Amphion. 
The  myth  is  full  of  meaning.  No  labor  was  ever  done, 
no  city  or  government  ever  built,  without  joy  to  make 
melody  in  the  heart  of  the  builder.  If  the  thews  and  sin- 
ews of  our  workmen  become  more  pliant  with  more  pleas- 
ure, if  the  very  boatmen  on  our  ships  sing  their  rounde- 
lays as  they  pile  in  the  coal  to  make  the  steam  come  and 
the  steamer  go,  why  may  not  our  political  architects  and 
workmen  have  had  their  jubilation  as  they  wrought  plinth, 
architrave,  column,  and  dome  of  the  political  temple  ? 

If  we  are  to  believe  that  fun  belongs  only  to  our  time, 
and  that  its  esprit  and  extravagance  are  limited  to  one 
country,  then  the  rollicking  effrontery  of  Aristophanes 
and  the  easy  pleasantries  of  Plautus  are  not  laughable. 
Or,  not  to  go  too  far  back,  let  us  reject  the  comic  deline- 
ations of  Florentine  life  by  Ginguene',  and  the  humorous 
extravagances  of  Peter  Aretin,  even  though  Hallam  crys- 
tallizes them  as  shining  specimens  of  humor. 

We  can  not  believe  our  early  statesmen  insensible  to 
x  humor.  We  would  not  thus  detract  from  their  fame. 
Our  recent  senates  have  been  called  fog- banks.  This 
appellation  is  less  invidious  when  applied  to  the  sessions 
of  the  early  senates,  as  they  were  enveloped  in  secrecy. 
But  when  we  reflect  that  our  Senate  is  dull  at  times,  be- 
cause a  foggy  speech  is  being  read  to  empty  chairs,  and 
when  its  giants  are  in  committee-rooms  and  libraries,  fab- 
ricating their  armor,  is  it  less  reasonable  to  believe  that 
our  early  representative  men  had  their  merry  moods  with- 
in the  adytum — all  the  merrier,  if  we  may  believe  in  re- 
ports, for  the  secrecy  ?  Nor  will  we  believe  in  the  dull- 
ness of  our  earlier  debates  because  the  evidences  are  not 


LEGISLATIVE   AND    ORATORICAL    HUMORS.  1  17 

as  abundant  as  they  are  now  of  humor  in  deliberation. 
Spice  has  done  much  for  the  mummy.  Cheops  survives, 
embalmed. 

HUMOR   CLASSICAL   AND   UNIVERSAL. 

Cicero  was  a  wit,  and  certainly  a  punster.  Caesar  col- 
lected his  puns.  We  have  no  account  of  his  repartees  in 
debate  ;  but  the  Roman  Senate  must  now  and  then  have 
smiled  at  the  sharp  pricking  which  he  gave  a  senator  who 
was  the  son  of  a  tailor  :  "Rem  acu  tetigisti."  In  spite  of 
his  verbose  writing,  and  what  Montaigne  calls  his  tedious 
languish,  he  could  "take  off"  the  paper  cap  of  a  cook  by 
a  play  on  the  word  "quoque,"  or  on  the  word  "jure," 
y  which  means  juice  or  soup!  "Ego  quoque  tibi  jure  fa- 


A  question  has  been  raised,  by  an  ambiguous  remark 
of  the  Elder  Disraeli  as  to  Cicero's  fatness  or  leanness. 
But  whatever  his  bodily  habit,  in  one  respect  he  was 
given  to  his  ease,  and,  like  such  men,  had  much  levity. 
Whether,  with  his  copia  loquendi,  in  public  he  used  the  fa- 
cetious —  like  some  of  his  admirers  —  we  are  at  a  loss  to 
determine  by  his  speeches.  We  shall  hereafter  deter- 
mine it  by  another  test,  to  wit,  his  versatile  and  abound- 
ing intellect. 

Because  the  reported  orations  of  the  bema  or  the  fo- 
rum show  no  humor,  does  it  follow  that  they  evoked  no 
laughter,  and  that  the  faculty  of  fun  was  wanting  in  the 
ancients  ?  Why  may  we  not  fancy  Cicero  rolling  out  an 
ad  absurdurn  on  his  antagonist,  or  ^Eschines,  fresh  from 
the  theatre,  making  a  pithy  point  against  Demosthenes? 
In  those  climes  where  the  bright  azure  sky  produces  a 
race  permeable  to  fun,  a  race  overfond  of  grimace  and 
demonstration,  ready  with  mimicry  and  quick  to  see  the 


Il8  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

ludicrous,  can  it  be  that  no  odd  quirk,  apt  anecdote,  or 
telling  ad  hominem  gave  vivacity  to  debate  ? 

True,  Rome  was  engaged  in  the  serious  work  of  con- 
quest. She  was  building  empire.  Not  for  her  was  the 
chisel  or  the  brush.  But  was  there  not  a  lute  behind 
Cicero  to  give  the  key  to  his  tones  as  he  launched  his 
thunders  from  the  forum  ?  He  who  studied  to  please 
could  not  omit  the  graces  of  wit.  The  art  of  speech  is 
above  all  arts.  The  Greeks  had  it  in  richer  abundance 
than  the  Romans.  The  creative  power  is  not  always 
the  ruling  power.  The  Romans  had  the  role  of  ruling. 
They  did  it  by  the  fasces  and  the  bridge  of  gold  for  the 
retreating  foe. 

"  Thine,  Roman,  thine  to  rule 
A  conquered  world,  to  give  just  laws  to  peace, 
To  spare  the  humble  foe,  resist  the  proud." 

But  while  the  Greeks  were  creators  in  art,  was  the 
genius  which  ruled  by  conciliation  wanting  in  geniality  ? 

There  are — there  must  be — lost  arts  in  the  domain  of 
senatorial  humor.  We  have  lost  arts  in  poetry,  painting, 
sculpture,  and  mechanics.  Tribes  and  nations  have  come 
and  gone.  Through  the  centuries,  migrations,  like  the 
grand  exodus  from  Europe  to  America,  have  changed  the 
face  of  society,  and  only  folk-lore  and  fairy-talk,  legend 
and  tradition,  remain  to  hint  of  lost  systems  and  litera- 
tures. There  is  little  new,  except  our  chemistry ;  and 
much  of  that  may  be  as  ancient  as  the  Pyramids.  Cin- 
derella's slipper  is  traced  back  to  the  Veda ;  JEsop  had 
read  Buddha ;  William  Tell  dwells  in  the  chronicles  of 
nearly  all  nations  ;  and  the  apple  of  his  archery  is  nearly 
as  old  as  that  of  Eden.  Even  Toledo  to-day,  with  all  the 
appliances  of  modern  chemistry,  can  not  produce  the  fa- 
mous blade  of  Saladin,  which  cut  his  gauzy  scarf  in  the 


LEGISLATIVE   AND    ORATORICAL    HUMORS.  1 19 

air.  If  this  art  is  lost,  may  there  not  once  have  been — 
and  have  been  lost  too,  or  at  least  hidden  from  us — the 
elegant  art  of  repartee,  more  exquisite  than  the  Oriental 
cimeter  ?  May  not  the  thunders  of  the  Agora  have  had 
electric  flashes  of  wit  ?  Were  there  no  "  arsenals  "  to  be 
shaken  by  fulminations  of  fun?  Wendell  Phillips  has 
said  that  the  best  part  of  our  wit  is  ancient,  and  that  we 
only  reproduce  what  is  gone.  Perhaps  the  parliamentary 
pleasantry  which  insists  that  it  can  not  furnish  brains  to 
the  stupid  opponent,  or  the  ruling  of  the  Speaker  who 
sees  the  pungency,  but  not  the  personality,  in  the  ques- 
tionable remark  of  an  honorable  gentleman,  may,  for 
aught  we  know,  be  stereotyped  on  the  crockery  tablets  of 
an  Assyrian  council,  or  written  in  the  hieroglyphs  of  some 
Egyptian  record.  Perhaps  some  Champollion  or  Smith 
may  yet  educe  from  the  dead  past  Assyrian  bulls  more 
amusing  than  those  of  Sir  Boyle  Roche,  and  burlesque 
more  exaggerative  than  that  of  Proctor  Knott.  If  so,  a 
fortiori,  may  we  not  believe  that  our  earlier  Congress- 
men had  their  weapons  keenly  tempered  by  ridicule ;  and 
that  neither  in  their  cups  and  committees  nor  in  open 
discussion  were  they  wanting  in  the  fine  sense  of  the  hu- 
morous ? 

Humor  is  perennial  and  immortal.  It  will  reproduce 
itself.  It  was  only  a  session  or  so  ago  that  Mr.  Archer, 
of  Maryland,  whose  name  on  the  roll  came  after  that  of 
Oakes  Ames,  having  voted  by  mistake  when  Mr.  Ames's 
name  was  called,  voted  again  when  his  own  name  was 
called.  He  was  saluted  by  the  poetic  apostrophe,  "  In- 
satiate Archer  !  could  not  one  suffice  ?"  He  was  quick 
to  rejoin  :  "A  better  archer  would  have  had  better  aims" 
And  yet,  knowing  that  wit  to  be  original,  what  was  my 
surprise  to  find,  in  an  old  newspaper  of  1825,  the  same 


120  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

remark  from  John  Randolph  to  Mr.  Archer's  relative, 
then  a  Virginian  member,  who  had  asked  a  second  day  to 
continue  his  debate  on  the  Bankrupt  Bill ! 

Humor  is  as  repetitious  as  reason.  It  knows  no  clime 
or  assembly.  Laughter  is  as  immortal  as  the  gods.  It 
knows  no  age.  The  babe  laughs  in  its  little  bed.  Why 
not  babyhood  in  the  cradle  of  the  world  ?  We  read 
that  the  boys  in  Damascus  clamber  into  the  plane-trees 
to  have  their  fun  at  the  procession  going  under  them 
bearing  the  mahmal,  the  gilded  case  in  which  the  kis- 
met is  taken  to  Mecca.  They  tickle  the  nose  of  the 
magnificent  camel  which  bears  the  sacred  emblem.  Yet 
these  Damascene  youths,  who  have — as  all  boys  have — 
mirth  for  a  playmate,  when  they  grow  up  and  become 
cadis,  pretend  to  gravity  and  cultivate  obesity!  Are 
they,  then,  as  near  to  sinlessness  and  greatness  as  when 
in  their  shadowless  youth  they  tickle  the  sacred  camel 
from  the  limbs  of  a  sycamore  ?  Humor  is  natural ;  grav- 
ity and  fat  are  artificial ;  and  nature  is  power  and  progress. 

It  was  said  by  an  eminent  editor,  "Young  man,  go 
West !"  Let  us  say,  "Young  man,  go  East !  Go  to  the 
Porte  !  Become  portly  !  If  you  would  rise  in  the  world 
and  become  a  dignitary,  go  to  a  semi-barbarous,  unpar- 
liamentary land  ;  grow  stout,  and  cease  to  smile  !"  But 
if  you  would  be  a  ruler  among  the  living  and  growing 
civilizations,  take  your  lesson  from  the  lispless  lips  and 
laughing  face  of  the  cherub  in  the  cradle ;  for  those  lips 
may  give  command  to  the  future  state.  The  happy  ur- 
chin, whose  fun  makes  music  for  his  band  of  boys,  romp- 
ing under  a  cloudless  sky,  may  have  the  potential  word 
in  tempestuous  debate. 

It  will  be  difficult  to  believe  that  in  the  ancient  legis- 
latures there  were  no  Tom  Duncombes  or  Bernal  Os- 


LEGISLATIVE   AND    ORATORICAL    HUMORS.  121 

bornes,  no  Palmerstons  and  Disraelis,  no  Hales  or  Ste- 
venses.  What  can  you  think  of  a  Spanish  Cortes,  with- 
out its  Randolph  and  Burgess  ?  Its  gravity  without  them 
would  be  intolerable.  There  is  no  curule  chair  which 
can  restrain  mirthfulness  ;  no  tribune  to  make  the  French 
Deputy's  face  as  rigid  as  your  "grandam  cut  in  alabaster." 
If  he  can  not  have  his  laugh  with  you,  he  will,  as  a  true 
French  wit,  have  it  at  you ;  for  was  it  not  a  Frenchman 
who  said  that  certain  savages  worship  the  devil,  and  neg- 
lect the  "  bon  Dieu,"  because  the  devil  is  spiteful,  and  the 
"bon  Dieu"  is  too  beneficent  to  injure  them? 

We  are  not  ready  to  credit  the  marvel  that  the  Gauls 
who  invaded  the  Roman  Senate  found  only  serious  faces 
and  iron  diaphragms.  Did  their  dignified  decorum  scare 
the  barbarian  into  awe,  and  thus  save  Rome  ?  We  doubt 
it.  Why,  such  an  irruption  into  one  of  our  legislatures, 
North  or  South,  would  be  received  with  guffaws.  Our 
State-houses  would  ring  again.  Many  a  "hole  in  the 
wall "  would  echo  to  the  convivial  shouts  of  the  victor 
and  vanquished.  We  are  not  left  wholly  to  our  imagina- 
tion, as  was  Shakspeare,  about  the  dust  of  Caesar,  when 
we  speak  of  ancient  oratory  associated  with  humor. 
Wits  and  warriors  were  before  Agamemnon.  Are  we  not 
told  by  Homer  that  among  the  kings  of  Greece,  when 
fighting  against  Troy,  one  at  least  in  their  councils — 
Thersites — made  fun  of  the  lazy,  dilatory,  and  mercenary 
heroes,  who  did  a  great  deal  of  bragging  about  a  very  lit- 
tle fighting,  not  to  speak  of  bagging  gold  and  decoying 
damsels  ?  Yet,  twice  in  our  Congressional  history  has  this 
exemplary  Homeric  coruscation  flashed,  at  the  expense 
of  Thersites  and  some  honorable  member  to  whom  he 
has  been  likened.  We  do  not  now  defend  or  applaud 
Thersites.  He  may  have  been  a  bully  and  a  buffoon,  as 

6 


122  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

he  was  by  some  regarded  ;  and  for  his  contumacious  and 
contemptuous  snarling  at  the  laggard  warriors  he  may 
have  deserved  to  be  knocked  down  and  pounded  by  the 
sceptre  of  Ulysses,  and  finally  killed,  as  he  was,  by  an 
irate,  long-haired  Grecian.  But  even  Thersites  had  his 
use  as  a  public  declaimer ;  for  all  translators  agree  that 
he  moved  the  Greeks  to  laughter !  He  is  an  illustration 
of  the  value  of  witty  retort  as  well  as  of  the  utility  of 
honest  torment.  Such  men  as  Corwin,  Nye,  Butler,  and 
Proctor  Knott  have  their  uses ;  for  they  kill  abuses  by 
a  sure  weapon,  ridicule.  If  Thersites  can  be  rescued 
from  his  bad  fame,  which  I  shall  attempt  in  a  chapter  on 
classic  humor,  then  precious  indeed  to  the  state  and  to 
society  is  the  inextinguishable  laughter  which  follows 
truthful,  droll,  and  pungent  speech  ! 


HUMOR — IS    IT   A    TEST   OF    TRUTH,  ETC.?  123 


VII. 

HUMOR  — IS  IT  A  TEST  OF  TRUTH,  OR  GREATNESS? 

"  Wit  lies  mostly  in  the  assemblage  of  ideas,  and  putting  them  to- 
gether with  quickness  and  variety,  wherein  can  be  found  any  resem- 
blance or  congruity,  thereby  to  make  up  pleasant  pictures  and  agree- 
able visions  in  the  fancy." — LOCKE'S  Essays. 

No  one,  except  the  most  jaundiced,  but  will  confess 
that  the  talent  for  wit  or  humor  is  one  of  the  most  poten- 
tial in  influencing  men,  and  especially  bodies  of  men. 
If  administration  or  legislation  consists  in  understanding 
how  to  thread  the  avenues  to  the  heart,  if  to  please  is  to 
rule,  who  will  account  such  a  gift  useless  in  human  soci- 
ety? Those  who  most  depreciate  the  talent  are  those 
who  are  void  of  it.  Lord  Froth,  in  the  "  Double  Dealer," 
says,  "There  is  nothing  more  unbecoming  a  man  of  qual- 
ity than  to  laugh ;  'tis  vulgar.  Every  body  can  laugh. 
Then,  especially,  to  laugh  at  the  jest  of  an  inferior  per- 
son !  Now,  when  I  laugh,  I  always  laugh  alone."  False 
logic  about  humor  is  as  silly  as  the  foppish  Froth,  and  as 
old  as  Hobbes.  Hobbes  held  that  laughter  was  a  demo- 
niac pride.  It  came  out  of  the  arrogance  of  men.  He 
thought  that  men  laughed  because  they  felt  that  they 
were  better,  smarter,  or  more  powerful  than  others.  They 
either  saw  farther  into  matters,  or  else  the  inferiority  and 
infirmity  of  others  were  a  proof  of  their  own  superiority 
and  grace.  He  confesses  that  mirth  and  laughter  are 
proper,  but  proper  only  to  comedy  and  satire.  He  plain- 
ly indicates  that  great  persons  that  have  their  minds 


124  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

employed  on  great  designs  have  not  leisure  enough  to 
laugh,  or  are  too  much  absorbed  with  the  contemplation 
of  their  own  power  and  virtues.  "  Such  eminent  wor- 
thies," he  holds,  "  do  not  need  the  infirmities  and  vices 
of  other  men  to  recommend  themselves  to  their  own  fa- 
vor by  comparison,  as  all  men  do  when  they  laugh."  We 
wonder  whether  "Tom  Corwin,"  the  orator  and  states- 
man, an  accomplished  advocate  and  an  able  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  could  have  read  Hobbes,  and  then  have 
dared  to  joke  a  scoundrel  out  of  office  or  a  political  vice 
out  of  existence  !  Before  he  died  he  told  a  friend  that  he 
would  only  be  remembered  after  death  as  a  clown.  Per- 
haps this  was  one  of  his  own  pleasantries ;  for  he  is  best 
remembered,  as  is  Webster,  by  those  graces  which  flowed 
from  his  genial  heart.  The  writer  is  not  unaware  that 
however  much  one  may  cipher  and  work  in  dry,  statistic- 
al, and  syllogistic  debate,  no  one  regards  him  for  the  la- 
borious days  and  studious  nights  because  on  some  odd 
occasion  he  may  have  killed  a  bill  by  a  playful  allusion. 
The  utility  of  the  humor  is  rarely  considered  and  appre- 
ciated. Some  men,  however,  have  their  compensation 
for  being  laughed  at,  by  assuming  the  grandeur  of  Pyth- 
agorean expression  and  the  solemn  mien  of  Lord  Bur- 
leigh.  They  are  the  Pharisees  of  society,  with  long  faces 
and  broad  phylacteries.  It  is  your  good  Samaritan  who 
spends  his  two-pence  of  frivolity,  and  pours  the  oil  of  hu- 
mor into  the  wounds  of  life. 

If  Madame  De  Stael  could  see  little  in  Shakspeare  but 
puerility,  bombast,  absurdity,  and  grossieretes  ;  if  she  over- 
shadowed his  sublime  and  pathetic  passages  by  what  she 
considered  his  buffooneries — the  shade  of  Corwin  should 
rest  content  under  the  willows  of  Lebanon.  Will  com- 
mon or  aesthetic  sense  never  see  the  necessity  of  lights 


HUMOR — IS    IT   A   TEST   OF   TRUTH,  ETC.?  125 

as  well  as  shades  ?  Will  it  persist  in  calling  that  a  blot 
which  is  a  shadow,  and  that  an  extravagance  of  levity 
which  is  a  luminous  beauty?  "No  great  men  are  jo- 
cose," intimates  the  surly  Hobbes.  Let  the  roll  of  Par- 
liamentary worthies  be  called.  Who  will  then  say  that 
this  gift  of  humor  is  inconsistent  with  studious  labor  and 
far-reaching  statesmanship  ?  Call  the  roll !  Sir  Thomas 
More,  Selwyn,  Pitt,  Fox,  Canning,  Grattan,  O'Connell, 
Palmerston,  and  Disraeli.  Even  Madame  De  Stael,  in 
her  day,  found  more  logical  sarcasm  in  Parliament  than 
rhetorical  flourish.  She  really  began  to  like  the  elo- 
quence which  detected  sophistry  and  enforced  truth. 
Who  denies  to  Sir  Thomas  More,  either  as  Speaker  of 
the  Commons  or  Chancellor,  as  polemic  or  man,  inherent 
greatness  ?  Yet  his  jocundity  was  used  constantly  as  a 
mask  for  a  wise  purpose.  He  was  censured  for  his  grav- 
ity of  demeanor ;  but  every  one  who  looked  on  his  face 
could  detect  the  constitutional  disposition  to  be  merry. 
He  is  not  the  only  wit  who  died  with  the  ruling  passion. 
Rabelais  and  Wycherley  are  said  to  have  joked  in  the 
article  of  death.  They  had  their  mirthful  misery  as  abun- 
dant as  that  of  the  Spanish  beggar.  When  committed 
for  treason,  to  the  executioner  More  exclaimed,  "Ah,  if 
you  chop  my  head  off,  save  my  beard !  That,  at  least, 
is  innocent  of  crime."  Yet  much  of  his  humor  dropped 
from  his  tongue  when  he  seemed  most  grave.  He  said 
that  he  loved  to  tell  his  mind  more  merrily  than  more 
solemnly  to  preach.  Jests  to  him  were  but  sauce ;  and 
it  were  but  an  absurd  banquet  in  which  there  were  few 
dishes  of  meat  and  much  variety  of  sauces.  It  was  to 
him,  however,  an  unpleasant  feast  where  there  was  no 
sauce  at  all.  Yet  this  rare  scholar,  honest  officer,  poor 
gentleman,  busy  Chancellor,  and  racy  Speaker  of  the 


126  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

Commons,  was  accounted  worthy  of  martyrdom  for  the 
sense  which  lay  beneath  his  quips  and  cranks. 

To  my  mind,  there  never  was  so  good  a  practical  joke, 
so  "saucy"  an  expedient,  as  that  which  Mr.  Speaker  More 
prepared  at  the  expense  of  Cardinal  Wolsey.  More  was 
a  friend  of  liberty.  He  believed  in  the  privileges  of  the 
Commons.  He  opposed  a  royal  budget  when  a  beard- 
less burgess.  Once  the  Commons  over  which  he  domi- 
nated irritated  Wolsey.  The  cardinal  came  down  in  per- 
son to  the  House  with  all  the  pomp  and  blazonry  of  his 
office.  In  he  comes,  with  his  seven  silver  pillars,  his 
maces,  his  pole-axes,  his  crosses,  his  hat,  and  his  great 
seal.  He  makes  a  solemn  oration  to  the  House.  The 
House  receives  him,  by  preconcert,  in  dead  silence.  All 
are  mute.  The  word  "parliament"  means  "parley," 
"talk;"  yet  this  body  was  humbly,  jocosely,  curiously 
dumb.  The  cardinal  turns  to  More.  He  remembers 
that  the  Speaker  is  the  mouth-piece,  by  the  English  Con- 
stitution, of  the  Commons.  More  explains  that  such  a 
presence  and  such  insignia  strike  them  into  the  eternal 
silences !  Tacita  is  queen,  and  yet  free  speech  rules ! 
When  Wolsey  left,  there  must  have  been  a  jolly  roar. 

There  have  been  speakers  since  who  might  have  ruled 
the  waves  of  debate  with  equal  wisdom  by  taking  lessons 
in  taciturnity.  Our  speakers  now  are  as  noisy  with  the 
gavel  as  the  House  is  with  its  caviling  clamor.  Dignity 
in  the  chair  consists  too  often  now  in  elevated  mono- 
tones and  perpetual  rapping. 

In  Harry  the  Fourth's  time,  one  of  the  speakers  was 
named  Tiploft.  He  obtained  a  grant  of  "harness  for 
peace  and  war,  as  well  as  for  great  horses  called  coursers, 
and  saddles  for  tilts  and  tournaments."  Was  this  grant 
a  joke  ?  Imagine  Mr.  Speaker  tilting  down  through  the 


HUMOR — IS    IT   A   TEST   OF    TRUTH,   ETC.?  127 

corridors  of  the  Capitol,  or  clown  the  aisles  of  the  House, 
with  lance  or  battle-axe,  to  enforce  the  previous  question  ! 
As  a  preservative  of  order,  and  otherwise,  such  a  ro- 
mantic performance  would  be  more  effectual,  and  more 
interesting  to  the  galleries,  than  our  present  mode  of  en- 
forcing the  rules.  I  recall  an  occasion  when  Mr.  Jones, 
of  Tennessee,  exclaimed,  "  Did  any  body  on  the  face  of 
the  almighty  earth  ever  before  see  such  legislative  pro- 
ceedings as  we  have  had  the  last  two  days  ?"  To  which 
the  Speaker  demurely  said,  "  It  is  not  a  question  for  the 
chair  to  answer."  And  then  a  fresh 

"  Burst  of  laughter,  like  the  electric  beam, 
Shook  all  the  audience,  but  it  was  at  him." 

It  is  not  true  that  the  humorist  is  necessarily  a  frivo- 
lous person.  He  commands  by  the  potency  of  his  wit. 
It  may  be  true  that  the  mere  humorist  is  frivolous.  You 
can  not  carve  a  great  man  out  of  him  any  more  than  a 
colossus  out  of  a  pebble.  The  mere  wit  is  very  near  a 
fool.  Nor  does  it  follow  that  because  the  mere  wit  is 
foolish  and  light,  the  real  wit  is  not  the  concomitant  of 
wisdom  and  greatness.  All  great  wits  are  not  great  men, 
but  all  great  men  are  witty.  On  this  thesis  we  pit  Syd- 
ney Smith  against  Hobbes.  That  divine  intimates  that 
it  is  seldom  that  wit  is  the  eminent  quality  of  any  man. 
It  is  commonly  accompanied  by  many  other  talents,  and 
ought  to  be  considered  as  evidence  of  a  superior  under- 
standing. He  instances  almost  all  the  great  poets,  ora- 
tors, and  statesmen  of  all  times — Caesar,  Alexander,  Ar- 
istotle, Descartes,  and  Lord  Bacon ;  Cicero,  Shakspeare, 
Demosthenes,  Boileau,  Pope,  Dryden,  Fontenelle,  Jonson, 
Waller,  Cowley,  Solon,  Socrates,  Dr.  Johnson  ;  and  almost 
every  man  who  has  been  distinguished  in  the  House  of 


128  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

Commons.  Had  he  lived  later,  his  list  would  have  been 
longer.  A  friend  of  mine  challenged  the  idea  that  great 
wit  to  greatness  was  always  nearly  allied.  He  named 
George  Washington  as  lacking  this  sense  of  humor. 
Washington  was  aristocratic,  but  not  too  starched  for  hu- 
mor. How  lordly  he  unbent  when  he  did  unbend !  Ir- 
ving, in  his  "  Life  of  Washington,"  says  that  he  found  but 
few  sportive  allusions  in  Washington's  correspondence. 
He  gives  one  only  in  his  third  volume.  It  is  an  invita- 
tion to  some  lady  friends  to  dine  with  him  at  his  quarters 
on  the  Highlands.  The  fun  is  not  overdone,  and  there 
is  not  much  of  it.  It  consists  of  an  elaborate  picture  of 
the  scanty  meal,  in  which  the  dishes  and  meats,  in  mea- 
gre array,  like  a  small  force  of  untrained  militia,  are  scat- 
tered over  the  board ! 

Let  us  return  to  our  legislative  examples.  Silas  Wright 
is  called  the  "  Cato  of  America ;"  but  was  there  ever  a 
man  more  readily  risible  ?  Judge  Douglas  I  knew  inti- 
mately. His  mind  was  as  fully  stored  with  anecdote, 
and  as  radiant  with  mirth,  as  that  of  his  great  competitor, 
Lincoln.  Crittenden,  of  Kentucky,  with  whom  I  served 
on  committee,  had  the  same  subtle  quality.  Many  a  time 
during  the  war,  at  the  table  of  Governor  Seward,  have  I 
listened  to  their  mutual  wanton  wiles  and  infinite  jests. 
The  recorded  humor  of  these  giants  is,  however,  sparse. 

WEBSTER,  CLAY,  AND   CALHOUN. 

If  called  upon  to  name  our  three  great  public  men  who 
shone  most  in  public  debate,  Calhoun,  Webster,  and  Clay, 
the  triumvirate  of  the  Senate,  trip  to  the  tongue.  Were 
these  men  too  serious  for  jest  ?  Were  their  stately  aplomb 
and  unassuming  pomp  in  the  forum  ever  relieved  by  the 
fantasies  of  humor  ?  To  deny  them  this  quality  is  to  ren- 


HUMOR — IS    IT   A   TEST   OF    TRUTH,   ETC.?  1 29 

der  their  hold  on  public  opinion  a  mystery,  if  not  a  mis- 
take. Each  of  them  had  this  quality,  not  in  that  eminent 
degree  which  overshadows  the  solid  parts  of  the  under- 
standing, but  ever  ready  to  flash  out  when  that  weapon 
was  the  proper  one  for  forensic  success.  It  was  my 
fortune  to  hear  but  one  of  this  triumvirate,  Webster,  and 
then  in  his  most  solemn  vein.  But  if  he  transmitted 
one  tithe  of  his  humor  to  his  son  Fletcher,  the  father 
had  a  richer  treasury  of  this  ringing  currency  than  he 
had  of  some  other  more  advantageous  resources.  Did 
he  reserve  his  great  fund  of  humor  for  his  hours  of  ease 
and  conviviality  ?  How  much  soever  of  this  interesting 
quality  he  possessed,  he  often  used  it  in  public.  Mr. 
Curtis,  in  his  preface  to  the  life  of  Webster,  says  that 
his  great  intellectual  endowments  and  conspicuous  civil 
functions  were  united  with  a  character  of  equally  marked 
peculiarities.  Among  these  peculiarities,  to  which  Mr. 
Curtis  does  not  give  sufficient  emphasis,  was  his  sensibil- 
ity to  the  humorous.  Why  do  our  biographers  so  depre- 
ciate that  which  we  most  desire  to  remember  ?  "  Pecul- 
iarity "  is  almost  a  definition  of  humor ;  and  if  Webster 
be  most  vividly  and  fondly  remembered  for  any  thing,  it 
is  for  these  peculiarities.  Doubtless  first  among  the  lov- 
ing traits  of  all  great  men  is  a  quick  appreciation  of  the 
absurd  and  angular  phases  of  life.  As  my  theme  does 
not  take  me  into  private  life,  it  will  suffice  if  there  be  dis- 
covered in  the  public  debater  this  element.  Where  do  I 
find  it  ?  Go  to  the  matchless  masterpiece  of  modern  elo- 
quence, Webster's  reply  to  Hayne.  His  biographer  prop- 
erly characterizes  this  memorable  oration.  He  compares 
it,  not  unjustly,  with  that  of  Demosthenes  on  the  crown. 
It  was  not  only  great  as  a  protest  against  the  "  oppngna- 
tion"  of  South  Carolina,  and  as  an  explanation  of  the 


130  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

Constitution,  but  both  for  plainness  of  speech  and  splen- 
dor of  imagery  it  is  unrivaled  in  the  annals  of  oratory. 
It  was  spoken  from  notes,  and  not  without  forethought. 
Would  that  it  had  been  fully  reported  !  Did  he  disdain 
on  this  great  occasion  to  harness  his  humorous  faculty? 
Even  the  notes  of  this  speech,  to  say  nothing  of  the  tradi- 
tions of  its  delivery,  indicate  that  he  rallied  his  opponent 
wittily,  turning  the  Banquo  ghost  allusion  against  him, 
and  then  made  a  grotesque  and  laughable  picture  of  the 
militia  of  South  Carolina  marching  upon  the  custom-house 
and  overthrowing  the  United  States !  Mr.  Curtis  calls  this 
only  a  lighter  tone  of  illustration,  running  out  the  practical 
application  of  the  South  Carolina  doctrine  into  the  incon- 
venient consequences  of  treason.  Whatever  it  was,  it  was 
effective,  for  it  was  fun  in  the  traces  of  ratiocination. 

But  we  have  proofs  in  plenty  of  Webster's  love  of  the 
humorous.  When  his  ambition  had  been  disappointed, 
and  infirmity  fell  upon  him  at  Marshfield  in  1852,  we 
catch  now  and  then  little  gleams  of  sportiveness  even  in 
his  last  petulant  talks.  "  I  care,"  said  he  to  his  biogra- 
pher, "no  more  about  politics  than  the  jackdaw  that  sits 
on  the  top  of  St.  Paul's ;"  and  then  he  repeated  some  of 
Cowper's  lines  on  that  interesting  bird : 

"  He  sees  that  this  great  roundabout, 
The  world,  with  all  its  motley  rout, 

Church,  army,  physic,  law, 
Its  customs  and  its  businesses, 
Is  no  concern  at  all  of  his, 

And  says — what  says  he  ? — Caw  !" 

Almost  in  his  dying  moments,  finding  his  nurse  still  up 
at  his  side,  he  exclaimed,  "  That  everlasting  Sarah  is  still 
there !" 

Mr.  Webster  was   in    President   Harrison's    Cabinet. 


HUMOR— IS    IT   A    TEST   OF    TRUTH,  ETC.?  131 

Harrison  never  forgot  his  Plutarch.  This  his  inaugural 
showed.  It  was  full  of  classic  allusions.  Mr.  Webster 
was  to  dine  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Seaton  ;  but  as  he  was  to 
see  President  Harrison  by  appointment,  and  talk  over  his 
inaugural,  he  begged  Mrs.  Seaton  not  to  delay  dinner  on 
his  account,  though  he  would  come  as  near  the  hour  as 
possible.  He  was  nearly  an  hour  late,  and  appeared 
quite  fatigued  when  he  entered.  In  his  slow  and  dry 
way,  he  told  of  his  interview  with  the  President  elect,  and 
spoke  of  the  number  of  allusions  which  the  inaugural 
contained  to  the  heroes  commemorated  by  Plutarch.  "  I 
found  the  President  very  tenacious,  madam,"  said  Mr. 
Webster,  addressing  Mrs.  Seaton. 

"  You  labored  very  hard,  no  doubt,"  replied  the  lady, 
"  to  have  the  inaugural  all  that  is  expected,  I  know,  for 
you  appear  very  much  fatigued." 

"Fatigued,  madam!"  rejoined  Mr.  Webster,  looking 
from  beneath  his  massive  front  and  assuming  a  serious 
tone,  "well  I  may  be ;  for  I  have  killed  a  dozen  Roman 
consuls  during  the  afternoon." 

Upon  the  Sub -treasury  debate  Mr.  Webster  had  the 
advantage  of  Mr.  Calhoun  in  every  thing  except  con- 
densed logic.  Mr.  Calhoun  rarely  indulged  in  the  luxury 
of  a  laugh.  While  Webster's  wit  was  bitterless,  he  used 
it  unsparingly.  It  was  tart  and  pungent.  But  who  could 
complain  of  his  friendly,  refined  ridicule  ?  Once,  when 
describing  the  abrupt  transfer  of  Calhoun  into  another 
party,  he  referred  to  a  sentimental  German  play :  "  Two 
strangers  meet  at  an  inn.  One  cries  out,  '  A  sudden 
thought  strikes  me  —  let  us  swear  eternal  friendship.7" 
Wrell  versed  in  the  English  classics,  as  he  looked  at  his 
opponent  he  must  have  understood  the  full  philosophy 
of  Drayton's  poetry : 


132  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

"  Let  your  jests  fly  at  large,  yet  therewithal 
See  they  be  salt,  but  yet  not  mix'd  with  gall, 
That  they  with  tickling  pleasure  may  provoke 
Laughter  in  him  on  whom  the  jest  is  broke." 

It  is  said  that  Calhoun  himself  joined  in  the  general 
laughter  which  tumbled  on  his  head  from  gallery  and 
Senate  as  Webster  recited  this  mockery  of  sentimentality. 

Mr.  March,  in  his  reminiscences  of  Congress,  attrib- 
utes much  of  the  effect  of  Webster's  oratory  to  his  man- 
ner, and  even  to  his  dress.  His  dark  hair,  sombre  brow, 
and  dark  and  deep-set  eye  were  aided  by  the  blue  coat, 
buff  vest,  and  white  neckerchief.  He  affected  the  Revo- 
lutionary colors. 

There  was  now  and  then  in  his  highest  reaches  of  elo- 
quence a  good-natured  irony,  not  nettling  nor  satirical, 
which  made  his  acting  alternate  between  genteel  well- 
dressed  comedy  and  tragedy,  which  the  biographer  is  as 
much  at  a  loss  to  appreciate  and  explain  as  for  his  sub- 
lime flights  he  seems  unable  to  find  finite  expression. 
Webster,  in  his  Hayne  encounter,  is  pictured  now  as  a 
Moses  emerging  from  the  clouds  of  Sinai,  and  again  as 
a  figure  which  only  a  Salvator  Rosa  should  paint.  His 
voice  is  the  far-resounding  sea ;  he  is  satanic ;  he  is  god- 
like. But  it  is  no  less  true  that  AVebster  had  the  finer 
quality  of  wit  and  humor  ingrained  in  his  massive  mind, 
and  that  the  various  elements  were  so  combined  in  him 
as  to  make  up  our  grandest  orator  and  man. 

There  is  a  five  minutes'  speech  made  by  Mr.  Webster 
on  the  evening  of  the  day  of  General  Scott's  nomination 
for  the  Presidency.  It  was  a  clay  charged  to  the  brim 
with  disappointment  for  him.  He  was  heart-broken  by 
what  he  felt  to  be  the  desertion  of  his  fortunes  by  the 
South.  It  was  a  waif  of  the  time,  and  has  not  been  pre- 


HUMOR — IS    IT   A    TEST   OF    TRUTH,  ETC.  ?  133 

served  in  any  Websteriana  which  I  have  ever  seen.  Is 
it  out  of  place  here  ?  The  Mississippi  delegation  return- 
ed from  Baltimore  to  Washington,  and  called  at  his  lodg- 
ings to  serenade  him.  Mr.  Webster  came  out  to  respond 
to  their  civility,  and  his  speech,  of  all  his  very  brief  utter- 
ances, is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  and  happy,  as  illus- 
trating his  temper.  In  its  poetry,  in  the  imperial  majesty 
of  its  tone,  and  in  its  proud  self-respect,  it  is  Webster. 
No  other  man  that  ever  lived  could  have  made  it.  Here 
it  is  :  "I  thank  you,  fellow-citizens,  for  this  friendly  and 
respectful  call.  I  have  only  to  say,  gentlemen,  that  the 
Convention  did,  I  doubt  not,  what  it  thought  best,  and 
exercised  its  discretion  in  the  important  matter  commit- 
ted to  it.  The  result  has  caused  me  no  personal  feeling 
whatever,  nor  any  change  of  conduct  or  purpose.  What 
I  have  been,  I  am,  in  principle  and  in  character;  and 
what  I  am,  I  hope  to  continue  to  be.  Circumstances  or 
opponents  may  triumph  over  my  fortunes,  but  they  will 
not  triumph  over  my  temper  or  my  self-respect.  Gentle- 
men, this  is  a  serene  and  beautiful  night.  Ten  thousand 
thousand  of  the  lights  of  heaven  illuminate  the  firma- 
ment. They  rule  the  night.  A  few  hours  hence,  their 
light  will  be  extinguished. 

"  '  Ye  stars  that  glitter  in  the  skies, 
And  gayly  dance  before  my  eyes, 
What  are  ye  when  the  sun  shall  rise  ?' 

Gentlemen,  there  is  not  one  among  you  who  will  sleep 
better  to-night  than  I  shall.  If  I  wake,  I  shall  learn 
the  hour  from  the  constellations,  and  I  shall  rise,  in  the 
morning,  God  willing,  with  the  lark  ;  and  though  the  lark 
is  a  better  songster  than  I  am,  yet  he  will  not  leave  the 
dew  and  the  daisies,  and  spring  up  to  greet  the  purpling 


134  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

East,  with  a  more  blithe  or  jocund  spirit  than  I  shall 
possess.  Gentlemen,  I  again  repeat  my  thanks  for  this 
mark  of  your  respect,  and  commend  you  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  a  quiet  and  satisfactory  repose.  May  God  bless 
you  all !" 

Of  Mr.  Calhoun,  little  can  be  said  of  his  public  use  of 
humor.  He  did  not  use  it  much  as  a  means  of  debate. 
Only  one  instance  do  I  recall,  and  that  has  rather  the  un- 
pleasant bitterness  of  sarcasm.  It  was  in  reply  to  Mr. 
Clay,  who  had  left  his  fame  on  various  topics  to  posteri- 
ty. Mr.  Calhoun,  in  reference  to  the  famous  coalition 
known  as  that  of  the  Puritan  and  blackleg,  by  which  John 
Quincy  Adams  was  elected  President,  said,  "This  the 
honorable  Senator  has  not  left  to  posterity.  It  is  already 
decided !" 

Mr.  Clay,  however,  like  the  Kentuckian  orators  who 
have  copied  him,  was  blooded  full  with  this  essential  at- 
tribute of  oratory.  He  was  at  times  as  playful  as  a  colt 
with  his  fancies,  but  he  always  had  them  under  curb. 
In  debating  the  Executive  patronage  in  1835,  when  such 
men  as  Wright,  Buchanan,  and  Marcy  were  his  com- 
peers, and  in  vindicating  the  character  of  public  offices 
as  trusts  and  not  as  spoils,  he  dropped  now  and  then  into 
pleasant  interpellations.  His  mirth  constantly  restored 
and  preserved  the  good  temper  of  the  Senate.  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan was  an  especial  target  for  his  stingless  fun.  The 
ex -President  was  somewhat  cross-eyed,  and  had  little 
specific  levity.  Mr.  Clay  was  referring  to  the  Demo- 
cratic leaders,  at  the  same  time  looking  at  Silas  Wright, 
between  whom  and  himself  sat  Mr.  Buchanan.  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan rose  and  said  "lie  was  sorry  the  Senator  from 
Kentucky  was  so  often  disposed  to  pay  his  respects  to 
him." 


HUMOR — IS    IT   A   TEST   OF   TRUTH,  ETC.?  135 

"  But,"  said  Mr.  Clay,  "  I  had  no  allusion  to  you  when 
I  spoke  of  the  leaders,  but  to  another  Senator,"  pointing 
to  Silas  Wright. 

MR.  BUCHANAN.  "  The  Senator  looked  at  me  when  he 
spoke." 

MR.  CLAY.  "  No,  Mr.  President,  I  did  not  look  at  him/' 
And  then,  holding  up  and  crossing  his  two  forefingers 
with  the  mischievous  air  of  a  Puck,  and  his  eye  all  twink- 
ling with  fun,  he  said,  "  It  was  the  way  he  looked  at  me  /" 
The  laugh  went  round  heartily. 

Once  charging  upon  Mr.  Calhoun  for  leaving  some  par- 
tisan alliance  as  to  the  Sub-treasury  question,  Mr.  Clay 
humorously  said  that  he  (Calhoun)  took  up  his  musket, 
knapsack,  and  shot-pouch,  and  joined  the  other  party ; 
he  went  horse,  foot,  and  dragoons,  and  he  himself  com- 
posed the  whole  corps  !  Again  said  Clay,  "  The  Senator 
was  once  gayly  mounted  on  his  hobby  [internal  improve- 
ments]. We  rode  double,  he  before  and  I  behind.  But 
he  quietly  slipped  off,  leaving  me  to  hold  the  bridle." 

On  another  occasion  Mr.  Buchanan  was  defending  him- 
self against  the  charge  of  disloyalty  during  the  war  of 
1812.  To  prove  his  loyalty,  he  stated  that  he  entered  a 
company  of  volunteers  at  the  time  of  the  battle  of  North 
Point,  and  marched  to  Baltimore.  "  True,"  he  said,  "  he 
was  not  in  any  engagement,  as  the  British  had  retreated 
before  he  got  there." 

MR.  CLAY.  "  You  marched  to  Baltimore,  though  ?" 

MR.  BUCHANAN.  "  Yes,  sir." 

MR.  CLAY.  "Armed  and  equipped?" 

MR.  BUCHANAN.  "Yes,  armed  and  equipped." 

MR.  CLAY.  "But  the  British  had  retreated  when  you 
arrived  ?" 

MR.  BUCHANAN.  "Yes." 


136  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

MR.  CLAY.  "Will  you  be  good  enough  to  inform  us 
whether  the  British  retreated  in  consequence  of  your  val- 
iantly marching  to  the  relief  of  Baltimore,  or  whether  you 
marched  to  the  relief  of  Baltimore  in  consequence  of  the 
British  having  already  retreated  ?" 


A    NEW    ERA    OF    HUMOR    (1840).  137 


VIII. 

A  NEW  ERA  OF  HUMOR  (1840) —  CONGRESSIONAL 
AND  PRESIDENTIAL. 

"  So  nimble  and  so  full  of  subtile  flame, 
As  if  that  every  one  from  whence  they  came 
Had  meant  to  put  his  whole  wit  in  a  jest." 

BEAUMONT. 

THE  old  debates  in  the  Weekly  Globe  show  much  care- 
ful talk  about  defaulters,  surplus  revenues,  specie  cir- 
culars, public  lands,  deposits,  territories,  pre-emptions, 
banks,  embargoes,  Indians,  tariffs,  treasury -notes,  and 
other  matters  of  a  material  nature ;  but  they  did  not 
draw  the  regular  flash  of  wit  or  the  humorous  rattle  of 
the  Parliamentary  minute-men,  like  the  era  of  fun  which 
really  begins  with  1840.  It  is  the  year  of  "  Tip  and  Ty," 
and  the  broad  nonsense  of  that  time.  It  opened  with 
Corwin's  reply  to  Crarey ;  and  this  refrain,  quoted  in  the 
House  by  Tuplett,  of  Kentucky,  echoed  the  popular  noise  : 

"  No  Prices,  or  Swartwouts,  or  such  deceivers, 
Shall  be  appointed  cash  receivers  ; 
And  no  man  who  is  given  to  grabbin' 
Shall  ever  enter  this  log  cabin." 

Every  thing  seemed  to  run  to  doggerel  during  that  wild 
and  wonderful  exercise  of  lung  and  fun.  Words  were 
strained  for  rhyming  and  rollicking.  "  Full  of  pizen  " 
rhymed  with  Frelinghuysen  ;  as  "  bust  his  biler,"  four 
years  before  had  rhymed  with  "  Tip  and  Tyler." 

An  Indiana  member  held  that  Tyler  was  right  in  put- 


138  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

ting  only  such  honest  men  in  office  as  gave  support  to 
his  administration,  if  such  could  be  found.  This  same 
member  remarking  that  Webster  was  in  Tyler's  Cabi- 
net, and  Tyler  had  become  a  Democrat,  said,  "  It  was 
like  grafting  a  crab-apple  on  an  orange-tree."  All  al- 
lusions to  the  recruits  and  the  auction  which  made  the 
Tyler  administration  a  subject  of  undeserved  ridicule 
in  1842,  were  received  with  unexampled  peals.  The 
House  then  laughed  at  every  thing.  Governor  Pickens, 
in  appealing  for  the  Constitution  and  the  rights  of  South 
Carolina  even,  was  received  with  roars.  The  "  Constitu- 
tional fact,"  thrown  out  in  debate  by  the  Tyler  champion, 
Caleb  Gushing,  provoked  roars.  The  word  "accident," 
or  "  Captain  Tyler,"  was  a  further  provocation  to  renew 
the  roars.  Even  ex- President  Johnson  called  a  Tyler 
Democrat  an  amphibious  politician,  and  there  were  roars. 
Another  champion,  Proffit,  of  Indiana,  whose  name  itself 
in  this  connection  provoked  roars,  cried  out,  "  Butt  your 
brains  against  the  substantial  fact  that  Tyler  is  President 
— your  brains,  if  you  have  any."  More  roars  !  "What ! 
keep  me  still  ?  Keep  Daniel  Webster  still  ?  Bray  away 
at  him,  like  wolves  at  the  moon  !"  Roaring  roars  !  Per- 
haps the  acme  of  this  roaring  session  was  reached  when 
Governor  Wise  proposed  an  amendment  to  the  pay  of 
Senators,  who  had  been  champions  of  a  peculiar  shibbo- 
leth of  1840.  His  proviso  was  that  no  Senator  should  be 
allowed  any  rations  other  than  "beef  not  roasted,  and 
not  to  exceed  a  cost  of  two  dollars."  The  shaft  struck 
the  vein.  One  member  cries  out,  "Order!  You  are 
laughing  hyenas  !"  Another  member  amends,  so  as  to 
except  the  small  "guard"  of  Tyler  men,  who  are  to  re- 
ceive missions.  The  laugh  then  was  at  Governor  Wise, 
who  moves  further  to  except  the  Senate,  where  there  is 


A   NEW    ERA    OF    HUMOR    (1840).  139 

* 

no  member  of  the  "guard."  Then,  after  the  long-con- 
tinued roars,  the  House  proceeds  to  the  business,  when  a 
wild  bull  is  let  loose  by  a  hasty  member.  He  moves  a 
clause  to  the  pending  bill  requiring  a  Senator  to  "  certify 
that,  when  absent,  his  absence  was  by  reason  of  himself 
or  family,  or  by  leave  of  the  House"  The  point,  or  the 
horns  of  the  bull,  made  the  payment  for  absent  days  to 
depend  on  the  ability  of  the  Senator  to  show  that  he  was 
absent  by  leave  of  the  lower  House.  This  was  an  alter- 
native of  jocosity,  and  his  "  accidency  "  and  his  brave  and 
brilliant  but  small  guard  had  momentary  relief. 

I  may  have  done  injustice  to  ex-President  Buchanan. 
In  looking  over  the  records,  there  is  much  humor  besides 
his  happy  reply  to  Clay,  Archer,  and  others,  referred  to 
in  the  preceding  chapter.  His  remarks  on  the  fiscal  cor- 
poration, in  September,  1841,  are  blessed  with  a  good  re- 
port in  the  Globe  (First  Session,  Twenty-eighth  Congress, 
page  340).  They  begin  with  a  play  on  the  opposition, 
who  had  done  so  much.  They  had  done  one  thing  for 
which  the  country  was  grateful — they  had  done  for  them- 
selves !  He  was  clever  in  his  description  of  speculation, 
anticipating  in  an  amusing  way  the  fight  of  the  bulls  and 
bears,  and  the  emergencies  of  corners  ;  and  this  at  a  time 
when,  as  he  pleasantly  showed,  the  exchange  between 
New  York  and  Detroit  was  only  fifty  per  cent.,  "Red 
Dog"  and  "Wild  Cat"  being  then  considerably  under- 
sized compared  with  the  golden  calf  worshiped  at  the 
East  "Political  speculators  may  incur  debts  by  bor- 
rowing, and  then  take  the  Bankrupt  Act.  The  two  plans 
will  work  admirably  together." 

Macaulay  says  that  the  knowledge  of  public  morality 
is  to  be  sparingly  gleaned  from  Parliamentary  debates. 
He  thinks  that  it  must  be  acquired  from  light  literature. 


140  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

i 

The  immoral  English  comedy -writers  he  holds  to  be 
more  moral  than  Plato.  The  heroes  of  the  orgies  of 
Bow  Street  would  not  have  held  such  discourse  as  Soc- 
rates and  Phaedrus,  on  that  fine  summer  day,  while  the 
fountain  warbled  at  their  feet  and  the  cicadas  chirped 
overhead.  So  he  would  go  to  the  ephemeral  and  easy- 
going literature  for  the  genius  of  a  period.  However 
that  may  be  with  respect  to  the  Grecian  or  English  as- 
semblies, compared  with  their  light  literature,  I  venture  to 
say  that  the  demoralization  of  whole  states  and  peoples 
by  revolutionary  crises  and  moneyed  panics  can  be  best 
ascertained  by  the  public  debate.  Even  its  froth  indi- 
cates the  general  situation.  When  General  Houston  de- 
scribes certain  Texas  obligations  as  selling  at  three  cents 
a  bale  ;  or  when  Buchanan,  Benton,  and  Silas  Wright 
picture  the  kites  of  finance  darkening  the  air  with  disas- 
ter, the  very  humors  of  the  time  are  delineated.  There 
is  a  funny  point  to  a  pencil.  Better  and  older  than 
Cruikshank,  Leech,  Darley,  Crowquill,  Stephens,  or  Nast, 
are  that  dressed  wit  and  odd  mannerism  which  come  from 
limning  and  genius.  Mr.  Buchanan's  playful  wit  shone 
in  depicting,  with  artistic  etching,  how  the  great  enter- 
prises had  failed  in  which  Clay  was  a  mover,  and  then 
drew  him  and  his  party  in  the  pleasing  posture  of  de- 
manding a  bank  anyhow,  even  though  its  exchanges 
should  be  made  in  bacon  hams,  and  its  currency  be  small 
potatoes.  It  was  the  very  ridicule  of  attitude,  besides 
being  illustrative  of  an  era. 

Our  presidents,  with  but  one  or  two  exceptions,  were 
sedate  men.  They  were  literally  composed  into  a  laud- 
able calmness.  The  haunts  of  our  federal  gods  were 
never  perturbed  by  loud  laughter,  as  Homer  represents 
Olympus.  Washington  had  the  repose  of  Jove,  without 


A    NEW    ERA    OF    HUMOR    (1840).  14! 

his  thundering  laughter.  The  elder  Adams  was  occasion- 
ally soothed  by  merriment  of  his  own  making,  which  his 
son,  John  Quincy,  turned  into  an  acerb  quality,  but  which 
has  broken  out  in  the  present  John  Quincy  with  royal 
heartiness.  The  elder  Adams  kept  a  diary.  It  shows 
an  occasional  mirthful  effusion.  His  Indian  story  is 
sheer  wit.  A  landlord  asks  a  copper  more  for  rum  in  the 
spring  than  the  fall  before.  The  Indian  inquires  the  rea- 
son. "  It  costs  me  as  much  to  keep  a  hogshead  of  rum 
over  winter  as  a  horse."  INDIAN.  "  He  won't  eat  so 
much  hay.  Maybe  he  drink  as  much  water." 

Jefferson  had  much  piquant  and  French  wit,  in  thought 
and  expression.  Had  he  not  been  conscious  of  his  weak 
voice,  which  sunk,  instead  of  rising,  under  the  pressure 
of  his  sensibility,  he  would  have  been  known  not  so  much 
as  a  great  writer,  nor,  perhaps,  as  the  only  American 
thinker  whom  Buckle  has  condescended  to  quote,  but  he 
would  have  been  the  compeer  of  Patrick  Henry  in  anoth- 
er forum.  Madison  and  Monroe  were  incarnate  sereni- 
ties. They  were  seldom  stirred  by  the  breezy  incidents 
and  accidents  about  them.  Jackson — how  he  loved  a 
good  story !  He  told  one,  too,  with  a  relish.  Besides, 
he  was  not  wanting  in  a  love  of  sharp  sayings,  nor  in  ter- 
rific scorn,  that  almost  rose  out  of  sarcasm  into  vilifica- 
tion. Van  Buren  had  a  serene  felicity  of  talk,  which  did 
not  detract  from  official  dignity.  He  had  not,  however, 
a  large  sense  of  humor.  His  son's  copiousness  of  sup- 
ply is  enough  for  one  name.  Harrison  had  a  merry  aban- 
don at  times.  Like  all  soldier-statesmen,  he  reveled  in 
the  odd  incidents,  by  flood  and  field,  of  his  early  career ; 
and  his  rural  life  at  North  Bend,  among  his  neighbors, 
gave  to  his  daily  experiences  genial  mirth.  Tyler,  like 
Johnson,  relished  wit  and  humor  after  a  method  ;  and 


142  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

Taylor,  with  his  homely  sense,  to  some  extent.  The  se- 
rious cast  of  Mr.  Folk's  face  was  often  relieved  by  an 
amiable  smile.  Mr.  Pierce,  like  Mr.  Fillmore,  had  the 
urbanity  of  Chesterfield,  without  Chesterfield's  theory 
that  it  was  ungenteel  to  laugh.  They  diffused  pleasure 
about  them  without  detracting  from  the  stately  influence 
of  the  magistracy.  Several  of  these  presidents— Tyler, 
Jackson,  Quincy  Adams,  Van  Buren,  Pierce,  Fillmore, 
Buchanan,  Lincoln,  and  Johnson — served  in  the  Federal 
Legislature ;  but  they  gave  little  or  no  special  evidence 
of  their  humors  in  that  sphere  of  public  life.  Even  Mr. 
Lincoln's  abounding  fun  fails  to  bubble  in  the  Congres- 
sional pool. 

Notwithstanding  what  has  been  said  of  Mr.  Buchanan 
and  his  ponderous  Conestoga  team,  he  does  not  stand  so 
far  aloof  from  fun  as  is  generally  believed.  He  had  a 
perpetual  rose  of  hilarity  and  health  on  his  cheek,  and  a 
twinkle  of  fun  in  his  eye.  The  eye  itself  was  an  evidence, 
and  the  cause,  of  great  good  humor.  But  Lincoln  is  our 
only  President  who  defied  tradition  and  dignity,  to  tell 
his  little  stories,  and  by  them  to  illustrate  matters  of 
great  pith. 

In  this  carnival,  after  1840,  we  not  only  have  the  Tyler 
defection,  but  the  sectional  question  began  to  irritate  and 
scintillate  into  wit.  Social  problems,  like  that  of  slavery, 
made  Cartter,  Giddings,  Hale,  Root,  Joseph  R.  Chandler, 
Lovejoy,  Gerrit  Smith,  Collamer,  et  altos,  humorous,  as  well 
as  aggressive.  When  points  of  order  were  made,  as  they 
were,  by  Southern  men,  nurtured  in  the  rules  and  devices 
of  the  House,  they  were  as  barricades  against  this  defiant 
musketry.  Owen  Lovejoy  is  the  genius  of  this  kind  of 
debate.  He  bursts  out  into  a  burly  "Ha  !  ha !"  that  yet 
rings  in  my  ear.  "  Oh  yes,  the  spirit  of  order  is  invoked 


A    NEW    ERA    OF    HUMOR    (1840).  143 

from  the  vasty  deep,  when  the  harpoon  strikes  the  blub- 
ber !"  "  Fire-eaters  "  joined  in  revelry.  Pleasantry  and 
pungency  had  as  much  to  do  with  the  antislavery  cru- 
sade as  polemics  and  platforms.  This  will  be  abundant- 
ly shown  in  subsequent  chapters. 


144  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 


IX. 

SOUTHERN  HUMORS—LEGISLATIVE  AND  OTHER- 
WISE. 

"  True  wit  is  nature  to  advantage  dress'd ; 
What  oft  was  thought,  but  ne'er  so  well  express'd." 

POPE. 

IN  the  South  and  South-west  there  was  a  company 
of  men  who,  like  Henry  Clay,  impressed  their  character 
on  the  country  from  the  beginning  of  the  Government. 
Starting  in  Georgia  with  James  Jackson,  Crawford,  the 
Clarkes,  Forsyth,  Early,  Troupe,  Cobb,  Upson,  Camp- 
bell, Shorter,  Colquitt,  Lumpkin,  Dooley,  Clayton,  Har- 
ris, Charlton,  Talbot,  Tatnall,  Cuthbert,  Gilmer,  the  La- 
mars,  M'Intosh,  Wayne,  Telfair,  Dawson,  Berrien,  Cum- 
ming,  Wild,  Toombs,  Stephens,  Holt,  Hill,  Campbell,  and 
a  host  of  other  brilliant  men,  who  were  compeers  of 
Macon,  Loundes,  Randolph,  Barbour,  M'Duffie,  Clay,  Lo- 
rn ax,  Grundy,  Preston,  Otis,  Tompkins,  Doddridge,  Gen- 
eral Jackson,  Van  Buren,  Adams,  Webster,  Benton,  Allen, 
Wright,  and  others — these  men  gave  tone  and  spirit  to 
the  first  half  of  our  centennial  life.  They  led  public  sen- 
timent by  their  mobile  Anglo-Norman  and  pertinacious 
Scotch -Irish  blood — by  strength  of  will,  purity  of  pur- 
pose, chivalric  devotion  to  woman,  love  of  adventure,  at- 
tachment to  politics,  and  their  readiness  in  natural  humor 
and  eloquence.  Impatient,  impassioned,  and  impetuous, 
yet  in  and  around  all  their  experiences  they  reveled  in  a 
stupendous  sense  of  humor.  These  heroes  of  debate  and 


SOUTHERN    HUMORS.  145 

their  descendants,  many  of  whom  appeared  in  the  Con- 
federacy in  arms  (and  are  re-appearing  above  the  surface 
of  Southern  society  since  the  war),  form  a  class  of  men 
unique  and  droll,  cultured  and  gentle,  peculiar  and  grand. 
They  remind  us  of  the  Bruces  and  Wallaces  of  another 
history.  Nor  was  their  sense  of  humor,  so  happily  re- 
produced in  Longstreet's  "  Georgia  Scenes,''  altogether 
restrained  by  the  religious  emotion,  though  this  element 
was  a  large  leaven  through  the  bucolic  and  camp-meeting 
life  of  the  South.  Its  pious  impulses  had  been  stirred 
by  the  fervid  eloquence  of  Wesley  and  Whitefield,  which 
Summerfield,  Bascom,  Maffit,  and  others  had  reproduced 
with  increased  zealotry.  But  in  spite  of  this  tendency  to 
the  seriousness  of  existence,  their  political  and  legisla- 
tive life  illustrates  the  humorous  abandon  of  their  nature. 
But  why  do  not  more  of  their  facetiae  appear  in  Congress  ? 
Was  it  because  we  had  then  no  short-hand  writers  ?  Did 
the  militia-muster  and  the  county  court-house  monopolize 
their  humor  ?  Has  no  one  preserved  it,  and  with  its  full 
flavor  ?  Some  traditions  of  it,  at  least,  survive.  Here  is 
one  instance.  No  more  comical  device  appears  in  the 
narrative  of  the  Irish  duello  than  the  attempt  of  Dooley, 
of  Georgia,  to  incase  his  leg  in  a  hollow  gum-tree,  so  as  to 
make  him  the  equal  of  his  wooden-legged  antagonist.  It 
is  said  of  these  men,  in  the  graphic  pages  of  Sparks's 
"Fifty  Years,"  that  they  always  played  "high  game," 
never  "low  jack." 

Take  as  a  specimen  the  Congressman  and  preacher, 
Colquitt.  "Ah!"  said  an  elderly  sister,  "talk  of  your 
great  men  !  None  of  'em's  equal  to  Brother  Colquitt 
Why,  in  our  county  he  tried  a  man  for  his  life,  sentenced 
him  to  be  hung,  preached  a  sermon,  mustered  all  the  men 
in  the  county,  married  two  couple,  and  held  a  prayer- 

7 


146  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

meeting  all  in  one  day.  Now,  wa'n't  that  great  ?"  Out 
of  this  stock  came  the  rare  men  who  made  Tennessee, 
Arkansas,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Alabama,  and  the  South- 
west, with  its  Jacksons,  Grundys,  Polks,  Poindexters, 
Houstons,  and  Bells.  Out  of  the  conflict  of  their  ambi- 
tions came  often  as  victors  such  Northern  men  as  Robert 
J.Walker,  of  Pennsylvania;  Sergeant  S.  Prentiss,  of  Maine, 
and  others,  who  captured  their  hospitable  constituents  and 
overcame  their  hot  competitors  by  sheer  bravery  of  will 
and  muscle,  elegance  of  aim  and  manners,  superb  dashes 
of  humor,  and  dazzling  splendors  of  rhetoric. 

These  were  the  leonine  men  of  the  second  era  of  our 
politics.  How  mercilessly  they  contended  with  each  oth- 
er for  political  if  not  sectional  advantage  !  Dead  lions 
now ;  but  swarms  of  bees  and  honey  were  in  their  very 
carcasses.  Nor  should  we  fear  the  sting  of  their  wit  so 
much  as  to  neglect  the  taste  of  their  honey. 

There  was  a  class  of  members  of  the  last  generation, 
of  which  Howell  Cobb,  Toombs,  Stanley,  Hunter,  Peyton, 
and  Wise  are  samples.  A  little  later  still,  say  1838,  were 
such  brilliant  and  able  men  as  Prentiss,  Fillmore,  Polk, 
Bell,  Evans,  Lincoln,  Gushing,  Hoffman,  Legare,  Vinton, 
Dawson,  and  Sargeant,  of  the  House.  From  this  group 
we  select  Prentiss,  although  his  splendid  rhetorical  ef- 
forts give  no  adequate  idea  of  his  humor.  There  is  a 
dash  of  it  here  and  there  in  his  stump -speeches.  No 
man,  South  or  North,  ever  left  a  reputation  for  purer  elo- 
quence. Pitted  in  his  early  day  against  Claiborne,  of 
Mississippi,  and  against  a  candidate  for  Governor  who 
alone  of  all  the  Democracy  had  the  courage  to  meet  him 
in  public  debate,  he  took  captive  the  Southern  mind. 
Not  alone  by  his  sublimated  eloquence  or  ready  wit  did 
he  capture  it,  but  by  his  ready  sympathy  and  honest  brav- 


SOUTHERN    HUMORS.  147 

ery.  We  have  often  heard  Judge  Sharkey  speak  of  his 
victories  at  the  bar,  and  the  volumes  which  record  Con- 
gressional successes  speak  of  the  great  ovation  which  the 
demi-gods  of  Senate  and  House  paid  him  on  his  debate 
upon  the  contest  for  his  seat.  All  were  enthralled  by  his 
witchery.  He  became  national  at  a  bound.  His  simple 
letters  to  his  New  England  home,  describing  his  trials  and 
victories,  give  no  idea  of  his  romantic  life.  They  vainly 
endeavor  to  tell  of  the  success  of  his  elocution  and  the 
temptations  of  his  wild  and  glorious  life.  His  paramount 
genius  was  oratory.  His  humor  was  the  servant  of  this 
genius,  not  its  lord.  Once,  when  in. joint  discussion  Gov- 
ernor M'Nutt  deplored  his  habits,  which  were  rendering 
his  learning  and  eloquence  useless,  he  retorted  on  the 
governor  with  riant  effect.  He  first  described  in  classic 
style  the  utilities  and  inspirations  of  wine  and  whisky. 
Before  making  the  ad hominem  upon  the  governor,  he  pict- 
ured the  glug-glug-glug  of  the  jug,  as  the  politician  tilts  it 
and  pours  from  its  reluctant  mouth  the  corn-juice  so  loved 
of  his  soul.  There  is  no  music  dearer  to  his  ear,  unless 
it  be  the  same  glug-glug-glug  as  it  disappears  down  his 
capacious  throat.  Then  turning  to  his  opponent,  his  face 
all  shining  with  fun,  he  said  :  "  Now,  fellow-citizens,  dur- 
ing this  ardent  campaign,  which  has  been  so  fatiguing,  I 
have  only  been  drunk  once.  Over  in  Simpson  County,  I 
was  compelled  to  sleep  in  the  same  bed  with  this  distin- 
guished nominee,  this  delight  of  his  party,  this  wonderful 
exponent  of  the  principles  and  practices  of  the  unwashed 
Democracy,  and  in  the  morning  I  found  myself  drunk  on 
corn  whisky.  I  had  lain  too  close  to  this  soaked  mass 
of  Democracy,  and  I  was  drunk  from  absorption  !" 

Another  galaxy  of  legislative  brilliance,  just  preceding 
and  during  the  war,  was  composed  of  men  like  Stephens, 


148  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

of  Georgia ;  Winter  Davis,  of  Maryland ;  Campbell,  of 
Ohio ;  Gilmer  and  Vance,  of  North  Carolina ;  Nelson 
and  Etheridge,  of  Tennessee ;  and  Faulkner  and  Bote- 
ler,  of  Virginia. 

Of  all  these  whom  I  have  named  it  is  difficult  to  say  who 
were  the  most  eloquent ;  but  for  humor  Governor  Wise 
wielded  the  most  trenchant  blade,  Etheridge  had  the  most 
original  flow,  and  Vance  had  the  greatest  abundance  of 
anecdote  and  good  nature.  But  none  of  them  came  up 
to  the  repute  of  that  veteran  who  was  called  the  "sarcas- 
tic, crazy  Randolph,'7,  unless  it  be  Henry  A.  Wise,  with  his 
copious  invective  and  abundant  illustration.  Mr.  Wise 
had  a  peculiarity  in  his  speech  of  leaping  from  the  se- 
verest denunciation  to  the  broadest  humor.  In  his  fa- 
mous fight  against  the  Know-nothings  he  used  this  ver- 
satility with  great  effect.  Once,  in  a  philippic  against 
the  "  Northern  conscience,"  he  exclaimed  :  "  O  gods  ! 
Northern  conscience  !  Take  a  shark-skin  and  let  it  dry 
to  shagreen  ;  skin  the  rhinoceros ;  go  then  and  get  the 
silver-steel  and  grind  it;  and  when  you  have  ground  it, 
take  the  hone  and  whet  it  till  it  would  split  a  hair,  and 
with  it  prick  the  shagreen  or  the  rhinoceros -skin,  and 
then  go  and  try  it  on  Northern  conscience !"  This 
looks  artificial,  but  Mr.  Wise  was  ever  ready  for  the  "  oc- 
casion sudden,"  as  his.  elaborate  debates  in  Congress 
show. 

RANDOLPH'S  WIT. 

Much  has  been  said  unjustly  of  Randolph.  It  is  not 
in  the  line  of  these  articles  to  vindicate,  only  to  analyze. 
But  no  one  in  any  parliamentary  body  ever  figured  so 
quaintly,  so  honestly,  so  intellectually,  and  so  tenderly 
as  this  incarnation  of  legislative  wit.  He  is  properly 


SOUTHERN    HUMORS.  149 

placed  in  an  article  like  this  at  the  climax  of  these  rare 
Southern  statesmen. 

The  following  description  of  John  Randolph's  personal 
appearance  we  quote  from  Sparks's  admirable  "  Mem- 
oirs:"  "His  person  was  as  unique  as  his  manner.  He 
was  tall  and  extremely  slender.  His  habit  was  to  wear 
an  overcoat  extending  to  the  floor,  with  an  upright  stand- 
ing collar,  which  concealed  his  entire  person  except  his 
head,  which  seemed  to  be  set  by  the  ears  upon  the  collar 
of  his  coat.  In  early  morning  it  was  his  habit  to  ride  on 
horseback.  This  ride  was  frequently  extended  to  the 
hour  of  the  meeting  of  Congress.  When  this  was  the 
case  he  always  rode  to  the  Capitol,  surrendered  his  horse 
to  his  groom  —  the  ever -faithful  Juba,  who  always  ac- 
companied him  in  these  rides — and,  with  his  ornamental 
riding -whip  in  his  hand,  a  small  cloth  or  leathern  cap 
perched  upon  the  top  of  his  head  (which  peeped  out,  wan 
and  meagre,  from  between  the  openings  of  his  coat  col- 
lar), booted  and  gloved,  he  would  walk  to  his  seat  in  the 
House,  then  in  session,  lay  down  upon  his  desk  his  cap 
and  whip,  and  then  slowly  remove  his  gloves.  If  the 
matter  before  the  House  interested  him,  and  he  desired 
to  be  heard,  he  would  fix  his  large,  round,  lustrous  black 
eyes  upon  the- Speaker,  and,  in  a  voice  shrill  and  piercing 
as  the  cry  of  a  peacock,  exclaim, '  Mr.  Speaker !'  then  for 
a  moment  or  two  remain  looking  down  upon  his  desk,  as 
if  to  collect  his  thoughts ;  then  lifting  his  eyes  to  the 
Speaker,  he  would  commence.  His  style  of  speaking 
was  peculiar ;  his  wit  was  bitter  and  biting ;  his  sarcasm 
more  pungent  and  withering  than  had  ever  been  heard 
on  the  floor  of  Congress  ;  his  figure  was  outre;  his  voice 
fine  as  the  treble  of  a  violin  ;  his  face  wan,  wrinkled,  and 
without  beard ;  his  limbs  long  and  unsightly,  especially 


150  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

his  arms  and  fingers ;  the  skin  seemed  to  grow  to  'the  at- 
tenuated bone,  and  the  large,  ill-formed  joints  were  ex- 
tremely ugly.  But  those  fingers,  and  especially  the  right 
forefinger,  gave  point  and  vim  to  his  wit  and  invective." 

There  is  a  story  often  told  of  how  he  rid  himself  and 
the  House  of  a  pestering  antagonist.  While  debating 
the  Missouri  question,  a  member  from  Ohio  became  im- 
patient with  Randolph's  tirade.  In  the  long  pauses 
made  by  Randolph,  the  member  would  rise  to  move  the 
previous  question,  in  order  to  cut  off  debate.  The  Speak- 
er ruled  these  interruptions  out  of  order.  At  the  third 
effort,  Randolph,  looking  up  from  his  notes,  said:  "Mr. 
Speaker,  in  the  Netherlands  a  man  of  small  capacity, 
with  bits  of  wood  and  leather,  will  in  a  few  moments  con- 
struct a  toy  that,  with  the  pressure  of  the  finger  and 
thumb,  will  cry  ' Cuckoo!  cuckoo!'  With  less  of  inge- 
nuity, and  with  inferior  materials,  the  people  of  Ohio 
have  made  a  toy  that  will,  without  much  pressure,  cry, 
'  Previous  question,  Mr.  Speaker !  previous  question,  Mr. 
Speaker !' "  at  the  same  time  pointing  at  his  victim  with 
his  skeleton  finger.  The  House  was  convulsed. 

Whoever  was  struck  by  the  Roanoke  statesman  seldom 
survived.  One  man,  however,  was  almost  his  match — 
Tristam  Burgess,  of  Rhode  Island.  In  1845,  when  a 
student  at  Brown  University,  I  called  on  this  genius  of 
elocution,  and  talked  with  him  of  his  public  services  and 
memories.  He  was  old  then,  and  lived  in  Massachusetts. 
He  had  had  a  feud  with  the  little  State,  and  moved  over 
the  Pawtucket  to  show  it  his  contempt.  His  eye  shone 
with  a  youthful  lustre.  His  pet  name  was  "  Eagle  Eye." 
His  aquiline  nose  was  emblematic  of  his  character. 

When  Burgess  went  to  Congress  it  was  soon  under- 
stood that  he  would  encounter  that  spook  of  a  member, 


SOUTHERN    HUMORS.  151 

the  piping,  thin-legged  Virginian.  Mr.  Burgess  was  an 
ex -professor  of  lelles-lettres  and  had  the  graces  of  ora- 
tory at  command.  He  went  into  the  tourney  with  little 
genial  humor,  but  an  infernal  sarcasm. 

So  keen  and  antithetic  were  Randolph's  shafts,  that 
they  have  the  appearance  of  study.  What  the  custom 
of  Mr.  Burgess  was  I  do  not  know ;  but  others  as  witty 
have  been  accused  of  memorizing  their  wit. 

Tom  Moore  intimates  that  Sheridan's  witticisms  were 
all  made  a  loisir,  and  kept  by  him  till  the  effective  oc- 
casion. This  is  incredible ;  for  in  his  last  moments  he 
joked,  and  joked  his  best.  He  once  said  that  a  joke  in 
Lord  Lauderdale's  mouth  was  no  laughing  matter.  So 
even  in  his  last  illness  it  was  no  laughing  matter  to  Ran- 
dolph ;  but  even  then  he  joked  with  his  servants  about 
having  his  hair  cut — calling  it  a  surgical  operation  !  He 
could  not  have  memorized  his  parliamentary  pungency 
any  more  than  Burgess. 

Mr.  Burgess  was  not  lacking  in  spontaneous  fun ;  he 
made  practical  jokes  with  it,  and  once  he  got  a  Roland 
for  his  Oliver.  He  wrote  on  the  lining  of  a  brother  law- 
yer's hat  "Vacuum  caput"  The  brother  asked  the  pro- 
tection of  the  court,  as  Burgess's  name  was  written  in  his 
hat  for  a  larcenous  purpose. 

The  observation  of  the  writer  is  that  the  best  humor 
is  that  which  springs  out  of  the  surroundings.  No  jest 
depending  merely  on  memory  strikes  kindly,  strikes 
home,  or  strikes  hard.  Besides,  studied  invective  im- 
plies malice  aforethought,  and  no  malicious  man  was 
ever  great  either  in  wit  or  humor.  Malice  corrodes  the 
steel  of  the  polished  poniard.  It  unfits  it  for  its  work. 
Hence  it  will  be  found  that  men  of  spirit  like  Burgess, 
Randolph,  Clay,  and  others,  before  they  closed  their  ca- 


152  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

reer,  illustrated  by  many  amenities  either  to  friends  or 
antagonists,  to  servants  or  family,  that  genuine  goodness 
upon  which  true  wit  and  humor  alone  depend. 

In  my  talk  with  Mr.  Burgess  he  spoke  kindly  of  all  his 
early  competitors  ;  and  Randolph,  when  dying,  was  call- 
ed on  by  his  old  antagonist,  Clay.  It  was  the  grasped 
hand,  the  knightly  honor,  and  the  tender  tear — these 
show  the  springs  of  sensibility,  the  secret  of  rhetorical 
power. 

In  his  letters  to  his  friend,  Francis  S.  Key,  Mr.  Ran- 
dolph showed  that  his  heart  was  touched  with  gentlest 
and  purest  thoughts  of  another  world.  Toward  the  end 
of  his  legislative  career,  in  a  tariff  debate  with  Louis 
M'Lane,  of  Delaware,  he  gave  signs  that  it  had  genial 
culture.  In  spite  of  his  own  remark,  that  he  would  have 
gone  to  the  distaff  or  the  needle  but  for  a  spice  of  the 
devil  in  his  nature,  he  was  as  gentle  as  a  woman ;  and  on 
this  occasion  he  begged  his  opponent,  Mr.  M'Lane,  in  the 
kindest  way,  to  point  out  his  (Randolph's)  fallacies,  even 
by  ridicule.  "  It  is  as  fair  a  weapon,"  he  said,  "  as  any 
in  the  whole  parliamentary  armory."  '  But  he  denounced 
the  poisoned  arrow  and  the  scalping-knife,  and  in  this  de- 
bate he  illustrated,  by  his  reply,  that  he  could,  but  would 
not,  retort  in  kind.  He  rather  praised  the  head  and 
heart  of  M'Lane,  who  had  praised  Randolph's  head  at 
the  expense  of  his  heart.  This  delicacy  of  feeling  was  a 
part  of  the  elemental  life  of  the  Roanoke  wit.  No  one  in 
the  American  Congress  was  fully  his  equal  as  a  personal 
antagonist.  He  often  made  the  infirmities  of  others  a 
target.  Nor  does  it  detract  from  his  wisdom  as  a  states- 
man. The  man  who  did  so  much  for  the  Louisiana  pur- 
chase, who  foresaw  our  grand  national  future,  who  so  de- 
tested and  denounced  the  corruption  which  even  then  ex- 


SOUTHERN    HUMORS.  153 

isted  in  land  -  grabs  from  Erie  to  Mobile,  who  was  ever 
rocking  on  the  vicissitudes  of  our  wildest  politics,  had 
a  heart  illumined  by  the  warmest  friendships,  and  the 
most  faithful  constituents  and  servants.  While  his  mind 
was  instinct  with  the  finest  humor,  it  was  alive  to  the 
largest  humanity,  as  his  will  of  manumission  shows.  His 
spirit  has  not  altogether  departed  from  the  Congressional 
body.  At  least,  we  have  two  of  his  connections  in  the 
present  Congress  —  Bland,  of  Missouri,  and  Tucker,  of 
Virginia. 

Randolph  is  a  sample  of  that  class  of  public  men  who, 
having  no  special  vocation,  gave  to  their  country  and 
their  neighbors  the  benefit  of  a  large  roundabout  sense. 

PRACTICAL   SENSE   WITH    HUMOR. 

The  present  House  of  Commons,  like  our  House  of 
Congress  since  the  war,  likes  good  solid  sense ;  but  it 
takes  it  best  when  seasoned.  Condiments  with  meats 
suit  better  than  the  Philippian  order  of  elocution.  We 
agree  that  men  in  all  legislative  bodies  are  listened  to  on 
their  specialties — Laird  on  shipping,  Lennox  as  an  arbiter 
elegantiarum  in  art,  and  so  on.  No  one  challenges  their 
ability  or  information  in  their  peculiar  spheres.  But  all 
qualities  combine  to  equip  a  Sir  Robert  Peel  for  com- 
mand, as  all  qualities  combine  to  make  a  Randolph,  a 
Webster,  or  a  Clay.  To  make  a  good  Speaker,  like 
Banks,  or  an  influential  Senator,  like  Schurz,  something 
more  than  business  qualities  is  necessary. 

We  take  issue  at  once  with  the  assertion,  so  common 
in  England,  and  becoming  so  general  here,  that  the  prac- 
tical talent  for  business  is  that  required  for  legislation. 
The  mere  business  men  in  Congress  are  not  the  most 
successful  as  legislators.  They  seldom  give  their  atten- 

7* 


154  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

tion  to  general  thoughts.  Even  a  great  lawyer  or  scien- 
tist, a  manufacturer  of  paper  or  the  editor  of  a  journal — 
notably  such  men  have  seldom  impressed  themselves  di- 
rectly on  debates  and  legislation. 

It  is  complained  that  the  greatest  men  in  America 
are  ostracized  from  public  life,  and  that  our  second-rate 
men  fill  third-rate  places.  The  complaint  is  untrue. 
Horace  Mann  on  a  school  board  was  great ;  in  Con- 
gress he  was  as  much  a  babe  in  the  woods  as  Horace 
Greeley  off  his  tripod.  Vanderbilt  or  Beecher  would  be 
lost  in  Congress.  All  ex-parte  men,  preachers  especially, 
are  unfitted  for  the  forum  of  open  debate.  It  is  the  full 
rounded  development  of  all  the  faculties,  including  that 
of  humor,  which  is  the  secret  spring  to  political  success 
and  the  test  of  our  greatest  men. 

Had  Horace  Mann,  Horace  Greeley,  and  Henry  J. 
Raymond  used  half  the  fun-power  which  they  possessed, 
as  General  Schenck,  General  Nye,  and  John  P.  Hale  did 
theirs,  their  legislative  career  would  not  be  overshadowed 
by  their  renown  in  other  spheres.  Francis  Jeffrey  was  a 
great  reviewer,  Macaulay  a  great  historian,  and  Bulwer  a 
splendid  genius ;  but  their  parliamentary  fame  is  as  dust 
in  the  balance  against  their  literary  glories.  It  is  not 
mere  abstract  knowledge  of  human  society  or  of  politic- 
al economy  that  makes  senatorial  fame.  Pistol  hit  the 
mark  on  Falstaff.  The  latter  was  chancellor  of  the  ex- 
chequer. Said  the  fat  knight,  arguing  for  his  budget, 

"My  honest  lads,  I  will  tell  you  what  I  am  about." 

"  Two  yards  or  more,"  shrieked  Pistol. 

"  No  quips  now,  Pistol.     I  am  about  thrift." 

But  he  shook  his  sides  with  Pistol  on  the  fun,  and 
went  to  work  on  the  budget — or  the  highway.  This  was 
statesmanship. 


SOUTHERN    HUMORS.  155 

General  Schenck,  after  two  months'  debate  in  1870-71, 
when  his  tariff  bill  had  been  torn  to  shreds  by  close  con- 
tests, item  by  item,  turned  his  missiles  of  sarcasm  upon 
all  his  contestants.  He  passed  his  own  bill  as  a  substi- 
tute, and  received  all  the  credit  for  the  reform.  How 
did  he  make  the  turn  ? 

"  My  bill,  Mr.  Speaker,  has  been  nibbled  to  death  by 
pismires  and  kicked  to  death  by  grasshoppers." 

Is  not  such  humor  a  test  of  power  ?  It  pleases  to  rule, 
and  it  rules  while  it  pleases,  with  no  ordinary  human  wis- 
dom. Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  accomplishments  of 
our  minister  to  England  in  other  respects,  he  impressed 
me  as  the  best  leader  of  his  party  during  my  knowledge 
of  public  affairs.  General  Nye  was  not  better-natured, 
and  never  so  logical ;  Senator  Edmunds  was  more  keen- 
ly logical,  Thaddeus  Stevens  was  more  domineering  and 
sarcastic ;  but  General  Schenck  had  a  natural  wit,  which 
controlled  without  study  and  design.  From  the  outer 
rim  of  the  House— Alaska  called — to  its  innermost  circle, 
he  seemed  at  once  to  dictate  without  intrusion  and  to 
charm  without  offense.  He  did  this  by  an  ineradicable 
good  temper.  Was  it  not  Bolingbroke  who  said  that  in 
comedy  the  best  actor  plays  the  part  of  the  droll,  while 
some  scrub  represents  the  hero !  "  So  in  this  farce  of 
life,"  he  remarked,  "wise  men  pass  their  time  in  mirth, 
while  fools  only  are  serious." 


156  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 


X. 

LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSID- 
ERED. 

"  Thou  art  too  wild,  too  rude,  and  bold  of  voice ; 
Parts  that  become  thee  happily  enough  ; 

but  pray  thee  take  pains 

To  allay  with  some  drops  of  modesty 
Thy  skipping  spirit." — SHAKSPEARE. 

How  are  we  to  test  the  flavor  of  humor  ?  No  brack- 
ets in  the  Globe,  as  [laughter],  will  help  the  article  if  it 
be  adulterated  or  poor.  Perhaps  this  was  Mr.  Speaker 
Elaine's  reason  for  forbidding  in  the  last  Congress  the 
insertion  of  these  odd  notes  of  risibility  and  admiration  ! 
And  yet  there  are  remarks  frequently  appearing  in  the 
reports  utterly  senseless  without  the  significant  parenthe- 
sis, as  there  have  been  humorously  reported  remarks  ut- 
terly dull  without  hearing  them  or  seeing  their  utterer. 
This  is  especially  so  when  irony  is  used.  A  genial  and 
rich  old  gentleman  from  Massachusetts,  now  deceased, 
touched  the  uproarious  chord  on  the  salary  question.  He 
had  deposited  his  back  pay  in  a  bank,  fell  grievously  sick, 
and, while  ill,  sent  for  his  clerk.  "Here !  put  this  amount 
to  the  credit  of  the  United  States."  "  Now,"  said  he, 
"  here  comes  the  sequel :  I  began  to  get  better  \roars  of 
laughter\  and  let  the  money  lie — where  it  is  now !"  This 
is  another  form  of  the  story  of  the  sick  and  well  devil. 
When  he  reached,  in  his  remarks,  the  cost  of  living  in 
Washington,  he  made  the  climax  of  fun  by  exclaiming, 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.     157 

"  Let  the  farmers  come  here  with  their  families  and  stay 
a  fortnight,  and,  my  word  for  it,  they  will  feel  it  down  here 
[slapping  his  pockets,  amidst  great  laughter]"  If  the  re- 
port had  stopped  before  the  brackets,  and  unless  the 
manner  of  the  speaker  were  known,  the  cause  of  this  im- 
moderate laughter  would  be  unknown. 

Laughter  is  not,  however,  always  the  sign  of  humor. 
Thackeray  tells  of  a  person  who  produced  laughter  by 
cultivating  stammering,  with  no  expenditure  of  genius. 
So  in  public  debate  the  only  way  to  account  for  certain 
laughs  is  to  know  the  tone  and  manner  of  the  debater. 
His  mere  language  and  thought  fail  to  reproduce  the 
sense  of  the  humorous. 

In  deciding  upon  this  deliberative  fun  we  can  not, 
therefore,  rely  altogether  on  the  printed  reports,  nor  be 
certain  of  its  genuineness  by  the  laugh  which  follows.  It 
can  only  be  tested  by  its  intrinsic  quality. 

The  humor  of  legislation  is  collective  as  well  as  indi- 
vidual. My  division  for  this  paper  is  that  of  collective 
humor. 

It  was  shown  in  the  last  chapter  generally  that  the 
body  of  the  House  laughs,  as  such.  In  that  festive  and 
boisterous  congregation,  silence  has  never  yet,  even  on  a 
funeral  occasion,  been  entirely  enamored  of  that  mute 
music  which  poets  like  Shelley  sing  of  quiet  woods  and 
still  waters. 

It  is  not  the  tongue  of  the  talker  always  that  makes 
fun  for  the  body.  The  body  may  laugh  sua  sponte  at  the 
talker  as  well  as  with  him.  It  makes  its  own  fun  in  a 
gregarious  way,  as  geese  may  be  said  to  cackle  in  con- 
cert, or  as  one  animal  of  the  menagerie  may  be  said  to 
arouse  a  discordant  concordance  of  harmonious  disso- 
nance !  As  in  the  human  body,  so  in  a  legislative  body, 


158  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

it  is  not  the  chordcz  vocales,  nor  the  facial  muscles,  nor 
the  head,  which  enjoys,  but  the  whole  frame,  from  the 
topmost  exultant  hair  to  the  swelling  diaphragm — heels, 
legs,  eyes,  all  in  one  paroxysm  of  jubilation.  It  is  not 
alone  because  the  fun  is  contagious,  but  because  all  parts 
of  the  body  are  in  a  consentaneous  roar.  If  on  some 
days  the  whole  House,  with  its  Speaker  and  officers,  mes- 
sengers and  pages,  is  ill-natured,  and  on  other  days  as 
good-tempered  as  if  on  a  holiday  excursion,  this  is  to 
be  representative.  We  get  this  from  our  changeable  cli- 
mate, if  not  from  our  English  cousins. 

Member  means  a  limb.  In  the  old  English  it  was  re- 
stricted to  the  arms  and  legs.  In  legislatures,  it  has  al- 
most a  Scriptural  meaning — "Many  members,  but  one 
body."  If  the  eye  can  not  say  unto  the  hand,  "  I  have 
no  need  of  thee,"  nor  again  the  head  to  the  feet,  "  I  have 
no  need  of  you  •"  how  can  an  orator  from  Nevada,  all  eye 
and  head,  make  his  brilliant  sentences  unless  even  the 
outer  rim  of  members,  gallery  and  all,  listen  and  laugh 
with  delight  ?  A  legislature  is  a  Dodonean  caldron. 

PARLIAMENTARY   SATURNALIA. 

It  is  a  part  of  the  rule  of  the  English  Parliament  to 
yawn,  scream,  shuffle,  cough,  howl,  and  break  a  member 
down,  if  he  is  not  liked,  or  if  the  House  is  impatient  for 
a  division.  It  is  no  fiction  that  Dr.  Warren  relates  when 
he  says  that  Tittlebat  Titmouse  broke  down  a  ministry 
by  an  inopportune  "cock-a-doodle-doo."  Will  it  be  be- 
lieved, ye  who  stickle  for  the  leaden  gravities  of  debate, 
that  there  is  a  rule  in  the  American  Congress,  to  be  found 
in  Barclay's  "  Digest,"  allowing  considerable  license  for 
the  hilarious  felicities  of  debate,  and  for  that  fancy  which 
Hobbes  thinks  "  pleases  by  extravagancy  ?" 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.     159 

On  the  1 5th  of  September,  1837,  Jefferson's  "Manual" 
was  adopted  in  so  far  as  applicable,  and  in  it  (Barclay, 
79)  it  is  said  that  "  no  one  is  to  disturb  another  in  his 
speech  by  hissing,  coughing,  or  spitting !"  Ample  au- 
thorities are  quoted  on  this  head.  "  Nevertheless,"  it  is 
further  said,  "  if  a  member  finds  that  it  is  not  the  inclina- 
tion of  the  House  to  hear  him,  and  that  by  conversation 
or  any  other  noise  it  endeavors  to  drown  his  voice,  it  is 
his  most  prudent  way  to  submit  to  the  pleasure  of  the 
House  and  sit  down ;  for  it  scarcely  ever  happens  that 
members  are  guilty  of  this  piece  of  ill-manners  without 
sufficient  reason,  or  inattentive  to  a  member  who  says 
any  thing  worth  their  hearing"  (2  Hats.,  77,  78).  This 
is  quite  consoling  to  the  vanity  of  the  majority  of  our  pub- 
lic debaters. 

Is  the  practice  under  this  rule  obsolete  in  England? 
and  how  far  do  we  practice  it  in  Congress  ?  To  answer 
this  we  touch  the  key  of  much  of  our  collective  fun. 

Dr.  Kenealy  appears  in  Parliament  with  his  green  bag 
and  umbrella.  He  is  the  pariah  of  Parliament,  represent- 
ing simply  an  impostor  and  the  old  bigotry  of"  no  bloody 
popery."  Is  that  noble  body  disturbed  by  his  presence 
under  this  rule?  One  would  think  so,  to  read  the  ac- 
counts. But  generally,  as  in  Congress,  so  in  Parliament, 
members  listen  with  great  good  temper  to  a  maiden  ef- 
fort. The  nervous  are  put  at  ease  and  the  diffident  en- 
couraged. But  impudence  and  bumptiousness  are  met, 
a  routrance,  with  festive  if  not  diabolical  defiance.  This 
defiance  generally  takes  the  form  of  fun.  If  the  member 
bores  the  House,  loud  talk  all  around  deadens  his  tone. 
The  more  animated  and  vehement  he  becomes  (and  we 
have  this  in  Congress),  the  more  furious  the  fun.  "Di- 
vide !"  "  divide  !"  "  Vide  !"  "  Vide  !"  stun  his  ear  and  shut 


l6o  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

his  mouth.  If  that  does  not  answer,  the  House  proceeds 
to  "count  out."  What  we  do  to  obviate  long  speeches, 
by  our  one-hour  rule,  previous  question,  and  night  ses- 
sions for  "  debate  only,"  the  English  do  by  "  counting 
out."  Forty  members  make  a  quorum  in  the  Parliament, 
though  with  us  a  majority  makes  a  quorum.  An  orator 
who  is  unpopular  or  irrelevant  is  tripped  up  in  Parlia- 
ment by  the  failure  to  have  a  quorum.  When  the  Speak- 
er's attention  is  called  to  the  thin  House,  he  is  bound 
to  count  the  House.  He  orders  the  electric  bells  to  be 
sounded,  and  the  hour-glass  is  called  in  and  turned  over. 
In  two  minutes  the  doors  are  barred,  and  the  forty  mem- 
bers not  being  in  the  House,  but  being  in  the  lobbies, 
smoking  and  laughing,  the  question  goes  over,  the  House 
is  relieved,  and  the  present  chance  is  gone  for  the  orator. 
This  scene  is  invariably  accompanied  with  good  temper. 
It  is  irregular  regularity. 

We,  too,  have  our  calls  of  the  House  to  discover  or 
bring  about  the  quorum,  and  the  rule  which  has  been 
quoted  has  considerable  latitude  on  such  occasions. 
During  calls  of  the  House,  and  when  filibustering  all 
night;  when  tired  nature  seeks  relief  and  finds  it  not — the 
boyhood  of  the  House  bursts  into  a  saturnalia.  Before 
recalling  some  of  these  scenes,  let  me  quote  some  exam- 
ples of  roistering  disorder  in  Parliament.  The  liberties 
which  the  young  and  old  statesmen  of  that  body  take 
with  the  unfortunate  orator  appall  the  delicate  and  deco- 
rous, and  even  the  stoutest,  will.  Dr.  Kenealy,  or  the 
case  of  Sir  Charles  W.  Dilke,  is  not  exceptional.  Fili- 
bustering under  the  rules,  which  leads  to  so  much  disor- 
derly levity  in  our  Congress,  is  not  peculiar  to  us.  Sher- 
idan moved  to  adjourn  nineteen  times  to  prevent  a  vote 
respecting  the  French  war.  He  succeeded  in  his  object, 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.     l6l 

as  filibustering  generally  does.  Perhaps  the  House  of 
Commons  is  more  tumultuous  in  its  jollity  because  it  nev- 
er gets  fairly  under  way  in  an  important  debate  until  aft- 
er dinner,  after  ten  o'clock  at  night.  If  our  constituents, 
looking  down  upon  the  House  of  Representatives,  be- 
come disenchanted  with  free  institutions  because  of  the 
apparent  inattention  to  the  orator,  or  to  the  business  be- 
fore the  House,  what  must  John  Bull  feel  when  for  the 
first  time  he  hears  the  noisy  levity  of  his  precious  Parlia- 
ment? Its  tumult  may  be  sometimes  heard  outside  in 
the  street,  through  closed  doors,  for  half  an  hour  at  a 
time,  vainly  endeavoring  to  drown  the  voice  of  some  six 
hundred  and  fifty-eighth  part  of  that  body.  The  scene  is 
indescribable.  The  vociferous  majority,  which  gives  its 
applause  to  its  leaders,  creates  a  rapturous  confusion  ut- 
terly unknown  to  our  American  legislatures.  These  leg- 
islators of  England  seem  to  be  trained  like  the  Greeks  of 
Crete,  whom  Homer  pictured  in  his  loud-lunged  Achilles 
and  his  big-mouthed  Stentor.  The  one  was  called  on  to 
roar  the  Trojans  into  Troy  and  disorder,  and  the  other 
could  be  heard  two  miles  off.  It  is  not  unfrequent  to  see 
hats  go  up  in  Parliament  with  huzzas.  Applause  is  rare 
on  the  floor  among  our  members,  and  it  is  becoming  less 
so.  Though  there  are  instances  of  applause  on  our  floor, 
still  the  general  sentiment  is  against  it;  but  in  no  case 
does  it  take  the  form  of  huzzas  or  vociferation.  There  is 
no  way  yet  found  to  stop  laughing.  I  have  known  mem- 
bers to  call  on  the  Speaker  to  do  it.  On  one  occasion 
when  this  was  attempted,  during  a  description  of  mem- 
bers of  Congress  retreating  from  Bull  Run,  Governor 
Wickliffe,  a  ruffle -shirted,  large,  jolly  Kentuckian,  made 
the  fun  worse  by  apologizing :  "  Indeed,  Mr.  Speaker,  for 
my  life's  sake  I  couldn't  help  it." 


1 62  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

Some  time  before  Mr.  Randolph  was  appointed  minis- 
ter to  Russia  he  had  delivered  a  speech  in  which  he  in- 
veighed, in  his  peculiar  way,  against  being  at  the  tail  of 
the  corps  diplomatique  in  Europe.  "  A  cup  of  cold  water 
would  be  better.  What !  should  he  give  up  his  Congres- 
sional life,  with  its  heartless  amusements,  vapid  pleas- 
ures, and  tarnished  honors,  to  dance  attendance  abroad 
instead  of  at  home  ?"  When  the  news  was  brought  into 
the  House  that  he  was  appointed  to  Russia,  there  was  a 
prompt  and  hearty  roar,  and  then  incredulity.  Some  cen- 
sured it  as  a  joke,  believing  it  to  be  a  falsehood  ;  but  the 
general  jubilee  was  extensively  expended  on  the  famous 
parliamentary  satirist.  This  was  collective  humor;  and 
it  was  fully  within  the  definition  of  Hobbes,  that  the  pas- 
sion of  laughter  is  nothing  else  than  a  sudden  glory  aris- 
ing from  some  sudden  conception  of  some  eminency  in 
ourselves  by  comparison  with  the  infirmity  of  others. 

The  spirit  of  exasperation,  defiance,  and  intimidation 
which  has  ever  been  indulged  in  by  the  French  Deputy, 
and  which  had  its  origin  in  the  French  Revolution,  for- 
bids the  broad  play  of  humor  which  abounds  in  the  En- 
glish Parliament  and  in  the  American  legislatures.  If 
it  be  true,  as  our  old  friend  Blair,  in  his  "  Rhetoric,"  says, 
that  humor  is  the  peculiar  province  of  the  English  nation, 
because  of  the  unrestrained  liberty  which  the  Govern- 
ment and  manners  allow  to  every  man,  and  that  the  indul- 
gence of  humor  is  incompatible  with  despotism,  a  fortio- 
ri, the  greater  unrestraint  in  our  "  land  of  liberty  "  and  in 
our  independent  and  social  life  ought  to  give  us  a  freer 
and  a  bolder  strain  of  the  comic  spirit.  Cervantes  once 
said,  "  My  Don  Quixote  would  have  been  more  enter- 
taining but  for  Inquisitorial  and  political  intimidation." 

Not  a  few  of  the  scenes  of  spiteful  disorder  in  Parlia- 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.     163 

merit  occur  upon  mutual  recriminations  ;  but  most  of  the 
scenes  where  Momus  enters  occur  when  that  body  is  in- 
disposed to  hear  a  bore.  An  illustration  of  the  first  was 
the  scene  between  Mr.  Shaw  and  Mr.  O'Connell,  both 
Irish  members.  Shaw  charged  the  great  agitator  with 
an  attempt  to  subvert  the  Established  Church,  which  he 
had  sworn  not  to  subvert.  "Order!"  "Order!"  shout 
the  Irish  members  in  chorus.  Then  O'Connell  accuses 
Shaw  of  falsehood ;  then  the  opposition  cry  "  Order !" 
then  the  House  is  on  its  legs,  and  gestures  as  wildly  as 
the  French  Assembly ;  then  a  lull ;  then  other  charges 
are  made  of  atrocious  calumny ;  then  cries  of  "  Chair !" 
"  Chair !"  and  "  Order  !"  then  the  poor  Speaker  uses  gav- 
el and  voice  in  vain  ;  then  more  "  lies  "  given,  more  con- 
fusion ;  then  that  everlasting  threat  of  the  chair  to  name 
members  or  dissolve  the  committee ;  then  an  abatement, 
and  Shaw  gets  in  one  blow  on  O'Connell :  "  The  mem- 
ber charges  me  with  spiritual  ferocity ;  but  my  ferocity 
does  not  take  for  its  symbol  a  death's  head  and  cross- 
bones  !"  Cheers  and  roars.  Then  O'Connell — never  be- 
fore so  ready,  though  often  more  brilliant — "  Yours  is  a 
calf's  head  and  jawbones  !"  Deafening  cheers  and  gen- 
eral thunder  of  fun. 

This  scene  is  not  quoted  to  confirm,  as  it  would  seem 
to  do,  the  English  impression  of  O'Connell  as  a  Parlia- 
mentary orator.  That  impression  is  grossly  prejudiced 
and  unjust.  The  bold,  natural  man,  who  is  pictured  with 
large  faults  and  coarse  sincerity,  whose  speech  was  "  tin- 
sel upon  frieze,"  was  ever  subtle,  musical,  and  skillful. 
Had  he  hated  the  Saxon  and  loved  the  Celt  less,  and 
had  he  been  of  another  creed  and  isle,  he  would  not  have 
been  stigmatized  as  the  Athenian  Cleon  and  the  Irish 
railer.  The  wool-sack  or  the  premiership  would  have 


1 64  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

been  his  guerdon  had  his  Titanic  strength  grown  from 
English  earth !  But  all  confess  that,  whether  in  Parlia- 
ment or  in  the  County  Clare,  before  the  jury  or  the  mob, 
he 

"  Now  stirr'd  the  uproar,  now  the  murmur  still'd, 
And  sobs  and  laughter  answered  as  he  will'd." 

Here  is  a  scene  of  another  kind,  into  which  the  bitter- 
ness of  altercation  did  not  enter.  A  member  for  Oxford 
hardly  says  his  "  Sir  "  to  the  Speaker  before  the  uproar  be- 
gins. Babel  is  as  Spenser's  Cave  of  Silence  compared  to 
it,  and  the  supposititious  account  of  the  Park  menagerie, 
when  the  rhinoceros  upset  the  cages,  is  as  a  prayer-meet- 
ing. The  sounds  are  not  merely  confused,  but  are  blended 
in  inextricable  and  pleasing  variety.  The  bass  of  a  hoarse 
member  crying  "  Read  "  fills  the  interlude  of  bagpipes 
from  the  back  benches;  agonized  coughs,  lengthened 
yawns,  sublime  sneezes,  such  as  the  Olympians  might  in- 
dulge, are  perceivable  amidst  the  yelp  of  hounds  and  the 
hullabaloo  of  the  chase,  while,  to  add  to  the  ensemble,  all 
the  cocks  of  the  rosiest-fingered  Auroras  are  in  full  crow, 
and  all  the  "  meek  children  of  misery,"  the  gentle  asses, 
bray  harsh  discord !  Up  and  down  the  chorus  leaps, 
amidst  groans  and  laughter ;  and  this  is  the  great  delib- 
erative body  of  history — the  omnipotent  Parliament  whose 
fiat  rules  four  hundred  millions  of  souls  on  our  star,  from 
"  farthest  Ind  "  to  extremest  Zealand ! 

Nothing  like  this  has  ever  been  performed  in  our  Con- 
gress. It  is  with  us  an  utter  impossibility.  No  future 
crisis,  perhaps,  will  ever  appear  so  full  of  legislative  strug- 
gle for  us  as  the  legislative  scenes  before  our  civil  war ; 
and  during  that  struggle  there  was  much  of  this  boister- 
ous deviltry.  On  one  or  two  occasions  there  was  exhib- 
ited sectional  hatred,  amidst  much  confusion ;  but  this 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.     165 

was  not  funny,  as  on  the  night  when  Keitt  and  Grow  had 
their  fracas.  The  insensate  hilarity  and  ingenious  de- 
vices for  obstruction  which  out-Herod  Herod,  as  exhibit- 
ed in  Parliament,  find  no  counterpart  here. 

Another  scene  in  Parliament  which  illustrates  one  of 
its  undeliberative  moods  :  A  member  arises  :  "  I  rise,  sir  " 
— he  is  saluted  with  ironical  cheers  and  a  zoological  ser- 
enade— "to  state" — a  flock  of  South-Downs  bleat  him 
with  their  "  Ba-as  !"  Loud  laughter  follows,  till  exhaust- 
ed nature  pauses — "  I  rise  to  perform,  sir,  a  duty  to  my 
con — "  Cries  of  "  Sit  down  !"  and  all  the  sounds  of  the 
chromatic  scale,  led  by  the  octave  squeak  of  a  pig  under 
a  gate,  the  shrill  voice  of  chanticleer,  the  "  Bow-wow-wow  " 
of  the  English  mastiff,  and  the  mewing  of  Tabitha  and 
her  kittens.  Does  he  sit  down  ?  He  does.  I  can  sym- 
pathize with  him,  having  been  under  fire  recently ;  and 
when  I  sat  down,  it  was  with  the  remark,  "I  take  my 
seat,  sir,  boldly!"  This  sedentary  alacrity  always  re- 
stores good  humor. 

One  may  well  believe  the  anecdotes  told  of  the  first  at- 
tempts of  leading  statesmen  who  were  driven  to  tempo- 
rary obscurity  by  the  howls  of  Parliament.  Their  merit 
is  measured  by  the  magnitude  of  the  difficulty  when  over- 
come. Pilots  gain  reputation  in  storms.  It  was  only 
the  other  day  that  a  Mr.  Pell  dashed  in  on  an  education- 
al matter.  He  began  :  "  No  member  can  be  more  sensi- 
ble than  I  am — "  and  there  he  forgot  what  he  was  going 
to  say,  and  paused,  while  a  titter  ran  through  the  House. 
"No  member,"  he  resumed,  "can  be  more  sensible  than 
I  am — "  and  again  he  stopped,  amidst  the  cries  of  "Hear ! 
hear !"  "  No  member,  Mr.  Speaker,  can  be  more  sensible 
than  I  am" — a  voice  from  below  the  gallery,  "Who  de- 
nies of  it  ?" — "  that  the  question  of  education,"  etc. 


1 66  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

The  Hon.  Mr.  Stanley,  Earl  Derby's  brother,  is  a  mem- 
ber of  experience,  but  his  manner  of  speaking  is  excruci- 
ating. He  is  nervous  and  embarrassed.  He  gets  up  to 
speak  with  a  large  sheet  of  paper  in  his  hand,  on  which 
he  has  made  his  notes.  He  fumbles  this  over,  and  never 
finds  what  he  looks  for.  "I  think,  sir,"  he  says  —  "I 
think,  that  is,  I  would  venture  to  say  " — a  long  pause,  in 
which  the  House  sits  in  respectful  silence — "  now,  this 
question  is  one  which  a  colonel,  or,  I  may  say,  a  major, 
might,  in  point  of  fact — that  is,  I  think,  supposing  his 
regiment  were  ordered  to  India — to  India"  —  another 
long  pause,  in  which  some  one  says,  in  a  stage-whisper, 
"On,  Stanley,  on!" 

The  same  thing  once  happened  in  the  old  Hall  of  Con- 
gress, where  a  stranger  in  the  gallery  saluted  M'Duffie, 
who  was  about  to  reply  to  an  attack,  "  Lay  on,  Macduff !" 
Convulsive  and  resonant  laughter  greets  all  such  efforts. 
It  is  the  quick  anticlimax  of  the  whole  body.  Such  in- 
stances are  not  rare  in  our  Congress.  "  What  would  you 
have,  sir  ?  I  am  a  plain  man,  Mr.  Speaker,  and  am  tired 
of  these  theories,"  etc.,  referring  to  free  trade.  "What 
I  want,  sir,  is  more  common  sense !"  A  fife-like  voice 
across  the  way,  "  That's  so,"  provokes  the  fun. 

Humor  is  often  unintentional ;  that  is,  it  causes  fun  in 
the  collective  body  without  prepense  on  the  part  of  the 
occupant  of  the  floor.  Once,  in  a  debate  as  to  the  ad- 
mission of  the  Cabinet,  the  writer  undertook  to  picture 
them  seated  within  the  House  after  the  British  method, 
and  by  a  fancy  he  supposed  certain  members  were  pro- 
posing questions  after  the  same  method  to  the  organs  of 
the  Government.  An  Iowa  member  was  supposed  to  ask 
of  Mr.  Welles,  then  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  "  whether  or 
not  the  Argonautic  expedition  of  Admiral  Jason  would 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.     167 

have  any  effect,  in  case  the  golden  fleece  had  been  capt- 
ured in  Australia,  either  upon  the  gold  or  wool  market." 
Then  some  one  inquires,  "What  gentleman  from  Iowa?" 
With  perfect  frankness  it  was  responded,  "My  pastoral 
friend."  The  honored  member  was  a  gentle  shepherd, 
keeping  immense  numbers  of  sheep,  and  was  also  a  Con- 
gregational minister.  .  It  was  only  truth  ;  but  the  House 
welcomed  it  as  if  it  were  witty.  It  was  upon  a  question 
which  "  opposed  no  man's  profit  nor  pleasure,  and  to  all 
was  welcome ;"  and  therefore  it  falls  within  the  rule  of 
humor.  Here  is  another  instance  of  unintentional  wit  on 
the  part  of  the  member,  but  to  which  intent  was  given 
by  the  body :  The  Marquis  of  Salisbury  was  discussing 
to  the  Lords  the  Church  establishment.  He  made  the 
parenthetical  laughter  by  a  bull.  "A  congregation,"  said 
he,  "  may  be  divided  among  themselves  into  two  parties ; 
yet  if  there  were  any  means  of  separating  them,  they 
would  both  go  on  happily  together  —  I  mean  apart!" 
The  noble  lords  enjoyed  the  logical  fun,  and,  perhaps,  at 
the  expense  of  the  noble  marquis. 

"  Who  ever  knew  the  gentleman  to  agree  with  any  gen- 
tleman whom  he  differed  from?"  literally  is  a  bull.  It 
was  once  humorously  applied  by  a  Cincinnati  member 
whose  jocose  Christian  name  is  Job.  Yet  it  admirably 
describes  the  character  of  a  bigot.  A  Senator  once  said, 
"  We  are  illustrating  the  impossibility  of  accurate  discus- 
sion, based  on  a  state  of  facts  which  are  altogether  un- 
known." But  these  bulls  were  only  japparently  uninten- 
tional. In  the  confusion  of  debate  there  is  sometimes 
much  unintentional  unconcatenated  facetiousness.  For 
instance  :  Mr.  Wood  struggles  for  the  floor.  "  He  has 
had  his  hour,"  says  Mr.  Conger,  of  Michigan,  and,  by  way 
of  suavity,  adds,  "  and  he  is  an  expert  speaker  and  schol- 


1 68  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

arly  statesman."  Mr.  Wood,  not  hearing  the  compliment, 
said,  "  The  gentleman  makes  a  statement  which  I  wish  to 
correct."  The  House  enjoys,  though  the  individual  did 
not  intend,  the  pleasant  surprise. 

How  quickly  a  laugh  will  settle  a  member  and  a  ques- 
tion, even  if  the  member  be  so  considerable  a  member  as 
Benton.  He  was  in  the  Lower  House  during  the  Thir- 
ty-fourth Congress.  There  was  a  question  in  his  mind 
whether  the  sine -die  adjournment  of  the  4th  of  March 
should  be  at  twelve  midnight  or  twelve  meridian.  It  had 
often  been  mooted  in  other  years.  It  was  once  made  by 
Quincy  Adams,  in  a  classic  allusion  to  the  graceful  figure 
of  the  Muse  of  History  in  her  car  above  the  clock,  look- 
ing down  on  members  to  remind  them  that  she  is  record- 
ing the  proceedings  of  Congress.  When  the  clock  point- 
ed to  twelve  midnight,  Benton,  full  of  the  old  issue,  arose. 
Pointing  to  the  hands  of  the  clock,  he  exclaimed,  "  I  am 
no  longer,  sir,  a  member  of  this  House,  sir."  The  Speak- 
er ordered  the  sergeant-at-arms  to  remove  all  those  not 
members. 

A   CALL   OF   THE   HOUSE. 

It  is  in  the  call  of  the  House  that  our  Congress  comes 
the  nearest  to  copying  the  English  extravaganza  of  de- 
liberation. There  is  not  much  at  stake  in  the  simple 
call,  except  to  get  the  quorum.  But  out  of  the  personal 
excuses  and  general  demoralization  of  a  night  session, 
when  many  members  are  "  o'er  a'  the  ills  o'  life  victori- 
ous," there  is  a  deal  of  fun  evoked.  It  is  properly  classed 
under  the  collective  humors  of  the  body,  rather  than  the 
individual  humor  of  the  member. 

Why  this  occasion  should  be  prolific  of  fun  is  owing  to 
the  fact  that  for  a  certain  time  the  body  is  shut  in,  wait- 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.     169 

ing  for  the  recusant  absentees ;  and  then  when  they  ap- 
pear, under  arrest,  there  is  a  sort  of  jolly  diabolism  in 
putting  them  to  the  inquisitorial  torture.  These  excep- 
tional occasions  generally  occur  after  a  weary  time,  or 
when  a  dull  member  or  a  tedious  question  is  up,  or  when 
some  party  defeat  or  victory  depends,  or  at  the  end  of  a 
session,  when  the  House  falls  below  the  quorum  because 
of  the  natural  rest  and  relief  which  many  members  seek. 
This  generally  happens  at  night. 

Is  it  a  sign  of  our  degeneracy  that  the  night  session  is 
becoming  more  frequent  ? 

In  England  the  legislature  has  reversed  the  curfew. 
That  body  does  not  begin  to  awaken  until  after  eight 
o'clock  in  the  evening.  It  has  realized  Addison's  satire 
on  the  customs  of  his  time,  when  the  daughters  were  busy 
at  crimp  and  basset  while  the  grandmothers  were  asleep, 
whereas  it  used  to  be,  he  says,  that  the  latter  were  wont 
to  sit  up  last  in  the  family.  Some  one,  speaking  of  this 
custom  of  nocturnal  deliberation  in  Parliament,  thinks 
that  the  Parliamentarians  are  the  worse  rulers  for  it,  as 
their  heads  are  muddled  with  wine.  It  is  regarded  as 
another  line  of  separation  from  the  people,  who  generally 
use  night  for  sleep,  and  the  spirit  of  dissipation  and  fash- 
ion conspire  thus  to  render  such  members  sorry  guard- 
ians of  liberty.  They  are  called  a  parcel  of  drinking, 
gambling,  nervous,  gouty  men,  unfit  to  wage  war  with 
corruption  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  Parlia- 
ment House,  it  is  confessed,  has  a  dingy  daylight,  and 
the  inspiration  to  speak  by  gas  is  too  great  to  be  lost. 
Disraeli  last  June  threatened  the  Home -rulers  with  day 
sessions  on  the  Irish  bill,  so  as  to  hurry  the  debate  to  a 
conclusion.  Is  it  a  harsh  judgment  on  Parliament  to  say 
that  nocturnal  sessions  unfit  it  for  business?  But  it  is 

8 


I  70  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

Leigh  Hunt's  judgment,  and  to  be  taken  cum  grano  salts. 
We  pit  against  him  Douglas  Jerrold,  who  says  that  the 
owl,  "  the  very  wisest  thing  in  feathers,"  is  silent  all  the 
day.  Like  the  scolding  wife,  she  hoots  only  at  night. 
Since  the  hours  of  owls  and  legislators  in  England  are 
alike,  we  leave  the  reader  to  settle  the  question  between 
Hunt  and  Jerrold — night  and  day. 

It  was  in  the  convivial  night  sessions,  in  1797,  that  Pitt 
and  Dundas  labored  under  the  scandal  of  sometimes  ap- 
pearing drunk  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Out  of  it  grew 
the  famous  epigram  : 

PITT.  "  I  can  not  see  the  Speaker,  Hal ;  can  you  ?" 
DUNDAS.  "  Not  see  the  Speaker  !  d — n  me,  I  see  two  !" 

But  it  is  a  significant  commentary  on  our  time  that  the 
old  Parliamentarians  met  at%  8  A.M.  In  the  time  of  the 
Stuarts  the  sessions  ran  till  "  candles  were  brought  in." 
Late  hours  and  luxury  go  together.  The  industrious  are 
at  their  dreams,  and  the  legislators  are  cheating  the  scale 
of  labor  to  heap  the  scale  of  swealth.  Such  is  the  com- 
plaint in  England.  And  are  we  not  approaching  the 
British  fashion  all  too  fast?  By  A.D.  1900  Congress  will 
meet  after  dinner  ;  and  then  look  out  for  the  menagerie  ! 
Already  our  occasional  night  sessions  provoke  the  live- 
liest frolicsomeness.  As  I  have  said,  they  give  rise  to 
calls  of  the  House,  and  to  scenes  which  would  "smile 
paralysis  out  of  Nestor."  The  rules  require  that  on  such 
a  call  the  absentees  shall  be  noted  and  the  doors  shut. 
If  no  excuses  are  offered,  the  absentees  are  trundled  out 
of  bed  or  away  from  a  dinner-party,  and  in  custody  of 
the  sergeant-at-arms.  They  are  then  brought  before  the 
bar.  It  is  then  that  the  fun  grows  furious.  No  business 
but  hearing  excuses  is  in  order.  The  members  are  coop- 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.     17 1 

ed  in,  and  must  find  amusement.  A  New  York  member 
in  the  old  Hall  once  climbed  down  the  granite  pillars, 
and  got  caught  midway  in  a  ludicrous  style.  Another 
once,  in  clambering  down,  caught  his  button  in  the  net 
about  the  hair  of  a  fair  companion,  and  took  the  hair  be- 
fore the  bar.  When  the  absentees  are  called,  the  Speaker 
sternly  asks,  "  You  have  been  absent,  sir,  without  leave  : 
what  excuse  have  you,  sir?"  Then  listen  to  the  fun. 
One  member  deprecatingly  says,  "The  law  allows  me  per 
diem,  but  not  zper  noctem  :"  his  wit  saves  him.  Another 
has  been  married  recently :  he  is  fined.  Another  has  a 
sick  wife,  and  could  not  come :  excused.  Another  inti- 
mates that  the  House  is  tight:  fined.  Another  was 
sleepy,  and  tired  of  the  dull  debating :  fined.  Another 
has  been  to  the  hospital  to  visit  a  constituent  with  the 
small-pox,  intimates  gently  that  the  disease  is  contagious, 
and  asks  to  go  home  :  fined.  Another,  who  was  absent, 
happens  in  somehow  without  arrest.  How  did  he  get  in  ? 
All  sorts  of  surmises  at  his  expense.  A  has  been  out  to 
put  on  a  clean  shirt.  B  has  gone  to  Baltimore  to  see  his 
wife,  whom  he  has  not  seen  for  a  month  :  excused.  C  in- 
forms the  House  that  he  told  his  absent  colleagues  there 
would  be  nothing  done  of  consequence,  and  proposes  to 
be  punished  vicariously  :  it  will  not  do.  D  has  been  to  a 
dinner  party,  and  E  sat  up  with  him  :  both  fined.  F  was 
telegraphing  about  his  oil  well :  voted  a  bore.  G  was  at 
home  on  low  diet.  H  asks  to  be  excused  on  "general 
grounds  :"  no.  H's  friend  has  been  at  his  room,  read- 
ing the  "  History  of  Civilization,"  and  commends  the  book 
to  the  needs  of  the  House :  fined.  J  had  promised  his 
wife,  when  he  left  Massachusetts,  not  to  keep  bad  com- 
pany or  late  hours.  He  might  have  quoted  Falstaff: 
"  Company,  villainous  company,  hath  been  the  spoil  of 


172  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

me."  He  caught  it.  No  man  can  vote  till  he  pays  his 
fine ;  therefore  K  proposes  to  stop  proceedings  till  he 
"settles  up."  L  has  had  a  difficulty,  and  expected  to  go 
out  of  the  District,  etc. :  he  is  mulcted  extra,  but  finally 
excused,  because  it  was  so  rare  an  occurrence  for  a  New 
England  member  to  have  an  affair  of  honor.  M  has  had 
a  fall  upon  the  slippery  steps  :  an  ardent  debate  ensues. 
As  he  would  not  say  whether  it  was  before  or  after  din- 
ner, he  received  the  penalty.  N  has  more  than  an  aver- 
age constituency — a  noble  body  ;  two  of  them  called  on 
him,  and  he  went  with  them,  to  be  fined  for  his  courtesy. 
Sometimes  the  deserters  when  brought  in  assume  airs, 
and  lecture  those  who  have  been  up  all  night.  Such 
only  escape  with  a  double  fine.  One  member  apologized 
to  "the  country  for  being  brought  in  on  a  Sunday  morn- 
ing! When  the  House  adjourned,  the  question  was  tax- 
ing the  whisky  on  hand.  A  point  is  made  whether, 
pending  that  question,  it  is  in  order  to  consume  the  stock 
on  hand.  A  common  source  of  fun  is  to  propose  that 
members  address  the  House  on  their  hobbies.  Mr.  Full- 
er was  once  asked  to  speak  on  light-houses.  He  briefly 
rejoined  that  they  were  situated  on  land,  to  be  used  on 
the  sea.  Mr.  Pruyn  is  urged  to  restate  his  views  on  the 
Presidential  vote  of  Western  Virginia.  The  largest  man 
in  the  Thirty-eighth  Congress  was  Baldwin,  of  Massachu- 
setts. A  small  man — nameless — proposes,  first,  that  he 
be  divided  to  make  a  quorum,  and,  next,  that  he  speak  an 
hour  on  the  prehistoric  man.  The  hour  is  granted,  but 
he  yields  the  "time"  to  the  small  man.  "Does  he  yield 
space  too  ?"  inquires  Thaddeus  Stevens.  So  many  are 
reported  sick  that  some  one  proposes  a  sanitary  commis- 
sion ;  another,  the  removal  of  the  Capitol  to  a  healthy 
spot ;  another  proposes  an  appropriation  for  "  chips  "  to 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.      173 

a  noted  faro -player.  An  Illinois  member  is  asked  for 
his  excuse.  "Guilty,  my  lord."  It  is  proposed  to  repri- 
mand him.  He  pleads  in  mitigation  of  damages.  An- 
other bought  tickets,  and  agreed  to  take  a  lady  to  the 
theatre :  not  excused.  One  man  wants  to  know  what 
day  it  is  on  Friday  morning.  He  is  informed  it  is  Thurs- 
day, though  it  was  Friday ;  for  the  legislative  day  is  not 
the  day  of  the  week.  A  similar  question  was  once  ask- 
ed by  Joseph  R.  Chandler,  of  Philadelphia.  He  was  a 
Catholic.  He  wanted  to  know  whether  he  should  eat 
flesh  or  fish.  Finally,  there  being  some  contumacy  re- 
ported, a  member  proposes  to  bring  in  certain  absentees, 
dead  or  alive.  There  is  a  call  for  a  division,  and  a  mo- 
tion to  strike  out  "  alive."  The  House  begins  to  weary. 
Thaddeus  Stevens  leaves  ;  a  motion  is  made  for  a  burial 
service,  as  when  the  brains  are  out  the  body  dies.  "  We 
have  lost  our  head,"  said  one,  as  Stevens  departs. 

It  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  forget  my  first  experi- 
ence on  a  call  of  the  House.  It  was  in  the  merry  month 
of  May,  1858.  It  occurred  on  a  private  bill.  I  had  not 
then  learned  the  secrets  of  the  prison-house.  Being 
caught  by  the  sergeant's  officer  on  my  way  to  my  duty,  I 
was  graciously  allowed  the  freedom  of  the  mail  wagon. 
How  I  chafed  under  my  first  arrest !  What  would  lynx- 
eyed  constituents,  and  especially  my  opponents,  in  Ohio 
think  !  I  tremble  as  I  recall  these  apprehensions.  I 
was  brought  before  the  bar  with  ZollicorTer  and  James  B. 
Clay.  The  then  leviathan  of  the  House,  Humphrey  Mar- 
shall, was  in  the  chair.  How  he  glowered  on  me  with 
ponderous  savagery !  He  made  me  feel  that  I  had  per- 
sonally affronted  him.  I  told  him  that  I  was  sorry  to 
waist  his  precious  time,  and  would  lean  on  his  mercy; 
but  there  was  no  mercy  in  him.  What  a  company  there 


174  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

was  that  night !  Minister  Washburne ;  General  Quitman ; 
Jones,  of  Tennessee  ;  Governor  Houston,  of  Alabama  ; 
General  Sickles  ;  Grow ;  Stevenson  ;  Colfax ;  Bishop,  of 
Connecticut;  Bingham ;  Lamar;  Groesbeck;  Pendleton; 
Governor  Smith,  of  Virginia  ;  Giddings  ;  Farnsworth  ; 
John  Cochrane ;  and  many  others  since  then  ministers, 
governors,  and  senators.  Some  of  them  are  in  the  cold, 
cold  ground.  "Where  be  their  gibes  now?"  Another 
"  call "  has  summoned  them  to  a  more  serious  session. 
But  it  happened  on  that  night,  as  frequently  since,  that  the 
vigilant  and  leading  men  were  absent,  while  the  dilatory 
wags  were  on  guard.  How  they  delighted  to  catch  Mr. 
J.  Glancy  Jones,  chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means,  at 
President  Buchanan's  dinner-table !  What  a  riant  row 
was  made  over  his  white  tie  and  rubicund  face  and  the 
Pennsylvania  delegation,  with  the  "  J.  B."  brand  on  their 
brows,  fresh  from  festivity !  Few  excuses  were  received, 
though  many  were  tendered.  A  member  from  Niagara 
had  "paired  off"  with  his  wife;  another  felt  so  bad  be- 
cause his  wife  had  gone  home,  that  he  could  not  partici- 
pate in  deliberation  ;  a  member  from  Maryland  was  re- 
marked as  showing  a  disposition  to  be  in  the  hall  by  be- 
ing in  the  gallery ;  one  member  found  the  sergeant  be- 
fore the  sergeant  found  him,  and  asked  to  have  that 
officer  fined ;  a  Kentucky  member  had  attended  all  day, 
expecting  to  die  in  his  tracks  for  a  favorite  measure ;  but 
as  the  measure  did  not  come  up,  he  could  not  die  ;  so  he 
left  for  home  ! 

When  John  Cochrane  was  called,  we  all  knew  he  had 
been  to  the  Presidential  dinner  ;  and  his  exculpation 
was  not  only  a  fine  piece  of  oratorical  humor,  but  he 
turned  the  tables  on  the  House,  as  he  did  on  the  "fell 
sergeant"  who  had  shocked  him  by  the  arrest.  The  man 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.      175 

physiological  was  astounded,  the  man  psychological  was 
appalled,  his  federal  constitution  trembled,  and  nature 
gave  signs  of  woe  that  all  was  lost,  for  had  he  not  been 
rudely  grasped  by  the  hand  of  authority  ?  He  had  been 
called  high,  he  felt  low;  and  then  some  one  suggested 
that  the  sergeant -at -arms  held  "Jack"  and  the  game. 
Upon  these  occasions  the  native  style  of  the  member 
thus  comes  out.  A  dozen  members  explain  that  they 
had  gone  out  for  a  bite,  etc. ;  but  General  Cochrane  dis- 
dained the  ordinary  Saxon  tongue,  and  sailed  into  the 
empyrean  of  Epicurus. 

The  stately  Mr.  Groesbeck  is  brought  in.  He  asks  for 
counsel.  Counsel  is  freely  tendered.  He  makes  a  sol- 
emn plea  in  extenuation,  whereupon  Hughes,  of  Indiana, 
likens  it  to  the  sermon  the  old  lady  heard,  the  best  she 
ever  heard.  She  could  not  remember  the  text,  or  the 
points,  or  the  sermon,  but  it  had  such  a  godly  tone  !  Gen- 
eral Curtis,  of  Iowa,  comes  in  voluntarily;  and  he  is  fined 
for  coming  in  without  compulsion.  Then  arises  the  mem- 
ber from  the  wild-cat  district  of  Pennsylvania,  Mr.  Gillis. 
He  makes  his  excuse.  Is  it  expected  that  he  should 
know  the  rules  of  such  a  disorderly  body  ?  He  confessed 
that  he  had  been  to  dine  with  the  President.  All  he 
knows  of  etiquette  is  to  go  and  dine  when  asked,  and  he 
is  willing  to  pay  for  it  like  a  man.  He  had  heard  that 
he  was  to  be  arrested,  and  flew,  not  to  the  horns  of  the 
altar,  but  to  the  horns  of  "  Old  Buck."  Harry  Phillips, 
of  Philadelphia,  who  had  himself  moved  the  call,  had 
abandoned  the  House  for  the  dinner.  He  was  caught. 
He  claimed  to  be  the  author  of  all  their  amusement,  and 
threw  himself  on  their  gratitude. 

One  of  the  most  laughably  memorable  scenes  of  a  col- 
lective quality  occurred  during  a  discussion  of  the  hour 


176  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

rule.  Quite  a  classical  interest  was  excited.  Mr.  Vallan- 
cligham,  quoting  Colonel  Benton,  believed  it  to  be  a  large 
limitation  on  the  freedom  of  debate,  a  permanent  injury 
to  free  institutions.  He  forgot  that  in  the  multitude  of 
words  there  wanteth  not  sin ;  and  in  many  words  there 
are  divers  vanities.  A  parliament  must  be  talkative;  but 
suppose,  for  a  moment  or  so,  it  should  have  a  session  of 
taciturnity.  The  nation  would  hold  its  breath  in  amaze- 
ment and  satisfaction.  He  believed,  doubtless,  in  the 
definition, 

"Man  is  a  creature  holding  large  discourse, 
Looking  before  and  after." 

He  collected,  in  a  note,  the  Grecian  and  Roman  customs 
in  regard  to  limitation  of  time.  Then  Etheridge,  of  Ten- 
nessee, arose.  During  his  speech  he  said  :  "  Now,  sir,  I 
remarked  that  the  rules  of  the  House  require  that  when 
a  member  is  called  to  order,  he  shall  take  his  seat,  and 
retain  it  until  the  member  calling  him  to  order  has  stated 
his  question  of  order,  and  the  Speaker  has  decided  it." 
Mr.  HARRIS,  of  Maryland :  "  I  call  the  gentleman  from 
Tennessee  to  order."  [Mr.  Etheridge  immediately  took 
his  seat  amidst  shouts  of  laughter.]  The  CHAIRMAN  : 
"The  gentleman  from  Maryland  will  state  his  point  of 
order."  Mr.  HARRIS,  of  Maryland  :  "  My  point  of  order 
is,  that  the  gentleman  has  been  indulging  in  a  lecture  to 
the  House,  rather  than  in  debate  upon  the  pending  prop- 
osition ;  but,  sir,  as  he  has  done  it  gracefully,  and  as  he 
has  evinced  by  his  action  recently  a  promptitude  to  prac- 
tice upon  his  own  teachings,  I  withdraw  it."  Then,  re- 
suming, Mr.  Etheridge  gave  this  reasoning  for  the  faith 
he  held  as  to  the  question  :  this  rule  compresses  a  man 
of  brains  into  so  small  a  compass  as  to  dwarf  all  his  en- 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.     177 

larged  and  liberal  ideas ;  while  it  enables  those  of  stupid 
natures  and  contracted  opinions  so  to  dilute  their  no- 
tions as  to  spin  out  and  exhaust  at  least  sixty  minutes. 
He  went  further;  and  contended  that  in  the  States 
where  codes  were  adopted,  the  lawyers  were  an  abbrevi- 
ated, revised,  and  simplified  edition  of  a  mean  constable  ! 
His  speech  for  free  speech  was  more  than  usually  ap- 
plauded. 

Once  a  member  was  excused  when  the  Japanese  were 
visiting  Congress,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  extending 
courtesies  to  them.  "  He  has  paired  off,"  said  Governor 
Vance,  "with  the  gentleman  from  Jeddo."  Mr.  Morrill 
once  made  much  humor  by  intimating  that  as  the  mem- 
ber said  that  we  ought  not  to  be  in  session,  therefore  it 
was  wrong  for  him  to  be  on  hand,  and  moved  to  fine  him 
for  doing  wrong  by  attending.  "The  gentleman's  proper 
seat  was  on  the  floor ,  and  not  in  the  gallery,"  said  one. 
A  member  desires  the  constitutionality  of  juleps  dis- 
cussed, along  with  a  branch  mint !  Mr.  Conkling  once 
gave  a  scanty  excuse ;  but,  as  he  said,  it  was  like  that  of 
the  man  who  had  a  cold:  it  was  the  best  he  had.  A 
partially  good  excuse,  on  a  principle  of  equity,  allowed 
the  member  to  go  free  on  half  costs.  A  member  moves, 
for  the  third  time,  to  adjourn.  "  This  rapidity  of  motion 
will  disturb  his  intellect,"  said  General  Cochrane,  who 
was  the  wildest  of  wags  on  such  sportive  nights. 

And  so  on  through  the  long  night  the  imprisoned 
members  indulge  in  what  seems  the  very  puerility  of 
frivolity.  But  is  it  altogether  to  be  reprehended  ?  Com- 
pared to  the  English  saturnalia  which  I  have  described, 
it  is  rational :  as  one  may  see  a  lot  of  grizzlies  upon  the 
side-hills  of  the  Nevadas,  where  cattle  are  wont  to  con- 
gregate, doubling  themselves  up  for  sportive  rolls,  somer- 


178  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

saulting  in  a  most  diverting  way,  until  they  make  the 
herd  familiar  with  their  antics,  when  suddenly  they 
pounce  on  the  fattest  of  the  beeves,  and  are  happy. 

UTILITIES   OF   PARLIAMENTARY   HUMOR. 

It  may  be  queried  whether  there  is  any  real  wit  or  hu- 
mor in  these  scenes.  Men  do  not  laugh  without  cause,  at 
least  gregariously.  Man  is  the  only  animal  that  laughs 
(or  weeps  either),  for  he  is  the  only  animal,  says  Hazlitt, 
who  is  struck  with  the  differences  between  what  things 
are  and  what  they  ought  to  be.  Hence  there  is  a  sort 
of  ratiocination  in  laughing.  It  is  generally  the  galled 
person  who  maintains  that  ridicule  is  improper  for  grave 
subjects;  but  who  is  to  decide  as  to  the  real  gravity? 
Shall  there  be  no  logic  because  it  is  abused,  and  no  hu- 
mor for  the  same  reason  ?  Second,  is  it  fair  to  decide 
that  such  and  such  a  scene  is  trivial  or  unimportant, 
worthy  of  playfulness  or  contempt,  or  of  titillations  of 
mirth  or  hearty  derision,  until  you  know  as  well  the  as- 
sembly as  its  manner  at  the  time  and  on  the  occasion  ? 
Some  of  these  calls  of  the  House  show  a  contradiction 
between  the  grand  object,  which  is  a  quorum,  and  the 
ludicrous  modes  of  obtaining  it ;  and  if  they  elevate  the 
mind  into  effervescence,  or  raise  mirth  in  order  to  relax 
and  entertain,  are  they  to  be  altogether  condemned  ?  It 
may  be  confessed  that  the  relaxation  and  entertainment 
are  not  unlike  the  turning  loose  of  the  three  hundred 
foxes  of  the  giant  of  Gath ;  for  on  such  occasion  every 
one  is  a  firebrand,  and  the  crop  of  legislation  is  more  or 
less  likely  to  be  injured. 

Is  it  gravely  asked  "  whether  such  scenes  are  fit  for 
the  first  assembly  of  gentlemen  in  the  world,"  and  the 
freest  body  of  representatives — assemblages  which  deal 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.     179 

with  myriad  rights  and  interests,  the  growth  of  centuries, 
with  their  conflicts  of  passions  and  interests,  principles 
and  prejudices  ?  Are  these  Parliamentarians  of  England, 
many  of  them  hereditary  legislators,  the  tenth  transmit- 
ters of  a  foolish  face,  to  be  commended  for  such  extrav- 
agances ?  Ah,  sir !  there  is  something  better  here  than 
this  nocturnal  mirth.  Here  is  the  elder  spirit  of  liberty  ! 
Here  are  her  majesty's  opposition!  "By  Allah!"  said 
an  Oriental  potentate,  looking  in  on  the  Commons,  "in 
my  country  we  would  have  their  heads  off  in  a  week !" 
This  very  freedom — nay,  license — of  debate  compensates 
not  only  for  the  inanity  of  the  Lord  Tomnoddys  and  the 
Earl  Fitzdoodles  of  the  English  senate,  and  the  broad- 
shouldered  bucolic  Englishmen  of  the  prize-ox  and  rud- 
dy-face order,  but  it  gives  us  the  rollicking  spirit  which 
is  never  unpopular  with  English  or  American  people.  It 
is  the  great  lever  in  moving  masses  of  mankind.  Is  it 
said,  again,  that  the  wit  of  deliberative  bodies  like  the 
Commons  or  the  Congress  is  of  inferior  grade  ?  So  it 
seems  often  when  reported.  The  jokes  of  the  judge  in 
court  are  simple,  the  facetiousness  of  the  bar  is  foolish, 
and  in  all  assemblages  on  business  intent,  the  mind  seeks 
relief  from  the  lightest  lisp  of  the  silliest  bonmot.  A 
laugh  is  catching.  We  laugh  often  because  others  are 
laughing.  Independence  and  impudence  help  it  along, 
and  the  next  morning's  debates  often  fail  to  show  the  real 
causes  of  the  risibility.  A  member  once  called  his  con- 
stituents "tinkers"  by  mistake  for  "thinkers."  There 
was  a  laugh.  The  rotund  face  of  Bernal  Osborne  may 
sometimes  account  for  the  fun  he  provokes,  as  did  the 
burly,  hearty  form  of  Q'Connell.  The  one  was  the 
"  saucy  boy  "  of  the  House,  and  the  other  could  agitate 
your  person  or  your  politics  at  will.  But  they  impart 


l8o  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

liveliness  to  debate,  and  make  logical  wounds  with  their 
rapiers. 

Sydney  Smith  held  that  wit  was  not  quite  so  inexpli- 
cable a  visitation  as  is  generally  supposed.  He  thought 
that  a  man  could  study  it  as  he  would  mathematics.  It 
is  often  studied  and  far-fetched,  but  I  defy  the  whole 
Smith  family  to  graduate  any  one  in  wit  where  the  na- 
tive element  is  lacking.  Palmerston,  who  rose  to  the 
premiership  by  his  bonhomie,  won  his  honors  by  turning 
the  unanswerable  away  by  an  absurd  side-wind  of  allu- 
sion. If  Disraeli,  the  dandy  debutant,  was  at  first 
coughed  down  as  a  failure,  it  was  rather  because  he  had 
overstudied  his  part.  Now  he  commands  most  when 
not  expecting  or  expected.  He  sucks  an  orange  or 
pares  his  nails  while  impaling  an  opponent.  Like  Mrs. 

Siddons, 

"  he  is  cool  enough 
To  pause  from  murder  for  a  pinch  of  snuff." 

True  humor  is  not  always  that  which  awakens  love, 
pity,  and  kindness.  It  may  instill  scorn  for  untruth,  and 
disrobe  pretension  of  its  imposture,  and,  like  the  sport- 
ive Parliamentarians  on  a  night  session,  unshadow  the 
deliberative  brow,  and  with  "  mirth  and  laughter  let  old 
wrinkles  come." 

In  discussing  the  collective  humor  of  the  legislature, 
we  have  said  that  the  body  is  moved  often  and  only  by 
the  peculiar  manner  of  the  member,  even  when  the  mem- 
ber neither  intends  nor  makes  wit.  A  lisping,  a  stam- 
mering, a  boisterous  man,  and  especially  a  one-ideaed 
man,  may  bring  down  the  House,  without  intending  to  do 
it,  simply  by  his  peculiar  manner.  This  manner  is  never 
reported.  A  member  is  always  reported  in  good  English, 
irrespective  of  his  impedimenta  of  speech.  When  a  mem- 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.     l8l 

ber  of  Parliament  gets  up  and  "awsks  the  liberty  to 
awnswer  the  oppobious,"  etc.,  he  is  as  well  reported  as 
the  member  who  says,  "  I  rithe,  thir,  for  the  purpothe  of 
athking  the  honorable,"  etc.  When  the  ear  is  accustom- 
ed to  this  style,  it  may  be  pleasant ;  but  how  are  we  to 
judge  of  the  fun  by  the  report  next  day?  We  once  had 
a  Congressman  from  Ohio,  now  Chief-justice  of  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia — David  K.  Cartter.  President  Pierce 
called  him  a  Mirabeau.  Judge  Cartter  stammered  just 
enough  to  make  his  copious  points  gush  at  intervals  like 
a  flood.  His  speech,  like  that  of  Charles  Lamb,  was 
punctuated  by  the  notes  of  admiration  which  his  tongue 
involuntarily  made.  This  also  may  make  humor  with 
the  audience,  though  it  be  that  of  the  orator  also. 

On  one  occasion,  about  two  in  the  morning,  when  six 
minority  Senators  were  vexing  the  majority  by  holding 
out  against  an  obnoxious  measure  and  urging  an  ad- 
journment, two  Senators,  Sherman  and  Conkling,  of  the 
majority,  grew  indignant.  Sherman  declared  that  before 
he  would  submit  to  such  dictation  he  would  be  torn  to 
pieces  by  wild  horses,  and  Conkling  declared  he  would 
die  on  the  floor  first.  As  these  astonishing  remarks 
were  being  uttered,  it  came  to  Senator  Stockton  to  take 
his  turn  in  the  time-consuming  debate.  He  put  the 
Senate  in  good  humor  and  adjourned  it  by  saying  that 
if  there  was  one  time  more  than  another  in  which  he 
felt  well — felt  like  speaking — it  was  at  the  early  hour  of 
2  A.M.  ;  that  he  was  not  willing  to  see  the  Ohioan  die  by 
horses ;  and  if  there  were  danger  to  the  New  Yorker,  he 
pledged  himself  to  throw  his  body  in  the  breach  and 
save  so  distinguished  a  man  at  the  peril  of  all  he  held 
sacred  in  life  !  The  Senate  adjourned. 

This  may  not  strike  us  as  the  best  humor,  but  it  an- 


1 82  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

swered  the  purpose,  and  the  manner  of  it  was  inimitably 
comical.  Like  Boileau,  the  Jersey  Senator  dressed  his 
speech  in  the  classic  model  of  burlesque,  and  made  the 
insignificant  seem  ludicrously  heroic.  The  Senate,  as  a 
body,  caught  the  infection  of  the  orator. 

But  the  collective  humor  of  the  House  has  generally 
an  objective  point.  As  in  the  call  of  the  House,  it  is 
directed  primarily  to  the  quorum,  so  incidentally  it  hits 
some  personal  frailty.  It  is  the  joy  of  triumph  at  the 
mischances  of  others  less  fortunate.  It  is  the  sudden 
conception  of  some  ability  to  discover  and  punish. 
Sometimes  the  loudest  laughter  is  at  the  signal  discom- 
fiture of  the  most  exemplary  and  regular  members. 

Those  who  have  been  students  at  college,  and  have 
played  their  pranks  and  had  their  laughs  at  the  sage 
professors,  know  that  the  kinder  these  teachers  are,  the 
more  the  mischief  is  played.  The  modest  simplicity 
of  the  teacher  is  no  coat  of  mail  against  the  javelin  of 
fun.  Silent,  quiet,  useful,  studious  men,  in  the  world  or 
in  Congress,  are  forever  the  favorite  butts  of  the  unthink- 
ing. Virtues  are  sure  to  receive  their  #;zreward  in  the  rid- 
icule of  the  unreflecting ;  and  the  helpless  reformer  may 
be  thankful  if  the  laughter  at  his  expense  is  any  thing 
more  than  tender  banter,  more  out  of  regard  than  dis- 
like. So  that  the  remark  that  "  calls  of  the  House  "  have 
generally  been  a  source  of  annoyance  to  the  best  men 
receives  a  larger  application. 

The  loudest  laughter  may  be  that  which  is  most  gre- 
garious, but  the  best  humor  is  that  which  the  mass  of 
members  do  not  produce.  It  is  the  individual  quality 
which  produces  the  best  vintage  of  fun,  and  which  I  shall 
discuss  in  my  next  chapter. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  the  American  leg- 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  COLLECTIVELY  CONSIDERED.     183 

islature  is  not  lacking  in  a  healthy,  logical,  aggregate  hu- 
mor any  more  than  the  people  it  represents.  It  may  not 
be  as  notably  witty  as  that  of  the  old  Irish  Parliament. 
There  may  not  be  in  it  the  badinage  and  satire,  philip- 
pic and  abuse,  of  the  English  parliaments  in  the  days  of 
Pitt  and  Sheridan,  Peel  and  O'Connell ;  but  it  is  never- 
theless true  that  our  leviathan  does  disport  himself  in 
our  Congress  with  wonderful  glee. 

If  for  this  gleesome  spirit  we  are  reproached  by  the 
dullards  and  rasped  by  the  envious,  as  one  of  the  "fa- 
thers "  of  the  House  in  their  behalf,  and  quoting  the  im- 
perial words  of  Theodosius,  I  answer  them  :  If  it  be  by 
folly  that  any  one  has  spoken  unjustly  of  us,  we  pity 
him  ;  if  by  ill-will,  we  pardon  him. 


184  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 


XL 

LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  INDIVIDUALLY  CONSID- 
ERED. 

"  Fancy  is  ever  popular  ;  all  like 
The  sheeted  flame,  which  shines,  but  does  not  strike. 

These  fine  merits  above  all: 

Point  without  sting,  and  satire  without  gall ; 

A  courteous  irony,  so  free  from  scoff, 

The  grateful  victim  felt  himself  let  off; 

St.  Stephen  takes  not  from  St.  Giles  his  art, 

But  is  a  true  good  gentleman  at  heart." — BULWER. 

IN  Congress,  as  at  the  bar,  to  acquire  eminence,  some- 
thing more  is  needed  than  mere  current  knowledge. 
Since  the  war,  there  are  complicated  and  added  Feder- 
al relations.  To  compass  these  implies  that  a  member 
should  know  something  about  every  thing.  He  should 
be  a  compend  in  science,  anol  an  epitome  in  history.  He 
should  be  especially  informed  about  matters  of  his  com- 
mittee. The  parliamentary  conflict  can  not  be  won  by 
small-arms  alone,  but  by  infantry,  cavalry,  and  artillery. 
The  mere  cross-roads  stumper  generally  becomes  a  year- 
ling Congressman,  that  is,  a  member  with  one  term  of 
service ;  for  in  his  last  session,  being  beaten  the  previous 
autumn,  he  is  a  mortuary  monument.  The  survivors  are 
the  men  who  hold  the  House  by  making  their  minds  an 
arsenal  for  every  weapon.  They  are  accomplished,  or 
should  be,  in  physics,  metaphysics,  ethics,  history,  phi- 
losophy, and,  above  all,  in  pertinent  facts.  To  omit  the 
lath  of  satire  and  humor  in  the  close  encounter,  which  is 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  INDIVIDUALLY  CONSIDERED.      185 

lissom  and  sharp  only  as  it  is  well  tempered  in  all  these 
streams,  is  to  leave  the  prince  out  of  the  play. 

This  good  temper  has  become  indispensable  since  the 
enlargement  of  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
in  1857.  It  is  the  attractive  element.  It  is  so  especial- 
ly since  the  recent  increase  of  the  number  of  members. 
The  most  weighty,  or,  rather,  the  best,  speech  is  listened 
to  with  fatigue  unless  there  be  an  occasional  smart  double- 
entendre,  tart  retort,  tickling  piquancy,  personal  point,  or 
pertinent  fact.  That  which  draws  most,  which  empties 
the  members'  seats  to  fill  the  area  in  front  of  the  Speak- 
er's desk,  is  the  bellicose.  It  is  this  which,  like  a  dog- 
fight, will  break  up  any  deliberation.  If  it  takes  the  form 
of  a  personal  explanation,  it  is  more  welcome.  This  at- 
traction consists  in  the  capability  of  wrath  joined  to  the 
felicities  of  fun. 

The  men  who  make  our  humor,  in  and  out  of  Congress, 
are  the  favorites  of  the  people.  We  give  them  pet  names. 
Corwin,  Douglas,  Butler,  Lincoln,  all  had  these  affection- 
ate freedoms  extended  to  them  by  their  supporters  or 
enemies,  just  as  "Little  Johnny,"  "Old  Pam,"  "Dizzy," 
and  others,  in  England,  had  them.  They  were  associated 
with  something  jocular.  Lord  Russell's  crisp  scorn  and 
Disraeli's  epigrammatic  sneer  helped  to  mold  English 
politics.  Mr.  Gladstone's  serious  mind,  ever  meditating 
between  the  moral  and  material  interests,  has  not  con- 
tributed to  gladden  the  tone  of  English  oratory.  But  in 
his  despite  there  is  much  of  the  old  flavor  of  humor  re- 
maining in  the  Commons.  This  decorous  Gladstonian 
solemnity  seems  to  be  generally  confined  to  the  followers 
of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  It  is  well  represented  on  the  Tory 
side  by  the  present  Lord  Derby.  Hence  we  miss  much 
of  the  brilliance  of  other  and  elder  Parliamentary  days. 


1 86  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

These  Adullamites  would  be  more  popular  if,  with  their 
information  and  sense,  they  would  unlimber  from  that 
painful  and  prudent  restraint  which  marks  their  public 
efforts.  The  food  they  furnish  may  be  nutritious,  but  it 
is  not  always  agreeable.  In  vain  we  look  among  them 
for  the  wit  and  humor  even  of  the  corn-law  times.  Is 
English  humor  degenerating?  In  the  five  volumes  of 
Hansard  of  the  last  session  but  one  of  Parliament,  there 
is  a  "  dull  and  sickening  uniformity  "  of  mere  statement 
of  fact,  little  deduction  or  reasoning,  and  much  less  vi- 
vacity. This  is  well,  perhaps  ;  but  would  it  not  be  useful 
now  and  then  to  have  a  thunder-storm  like  that  of  Plim- 
soll,  the  sailor's  friend,  when  he  cleared  the  sky  by  a 
tragic  performance  and  a  cry  of  "  Murder  ?"  Better  now 
and  then  the  menagerie  than  the  everlasting  tame  collis- 
ion of  selfish  interests,  unrelieved  by  any  gleam  of  nature. 
The  burden  of  debate  consists  of  church  livings  and  beer, 
Irish  miseries  and  trade, 

"  Improving  rifles,  lecturing  at  reviews, 
And  levying  taxes  for  reforms — in  screws." 

We  may  well  ask :  Are  these  the  only  elements  of  a  na- 
tional existence  ?  Are  these  the  only  means  of  winning 
popular  favor?  Have  the  newspaper  and  caricaturist 
monopolized  all  the  points  of  ridicule  against  wrong  and 
all  the  jocularity  which  illustrates  affairs  ? 

Without  being  too  much  a  praiser  of  the  time  past,  and 
without  derogating  from  the  management  of  the  English 
Parliament  under  its  new  conditions,  we  naturally  recur 
to  the  "  giants  "  of  other  not  very  recent  days.  It  is  no 
mere  pun  to  say  that  its  palmiest  days  were  those  when 
Palmerston  charmed  the  British  public.  He  did  it  be- 
cause he  was  himself  a  fit  receptacle  of  his  own  jokes. 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  INDIVIDUALLY  CONSIDERED.     187 

Lord  Granville  had,  and  has  yet,  something  of  the  easy, 
winning  wit  of  social  life.  He  has  a  velvety  mode  and 
a  honeyed  tongue.  His  flame  is  lambent.  "  Fair  as  the 
Lovelace  of  a  lady's  dream,"  he  is  not  inaptly  called  ox- 
eyed,  from  his  Juno-like  majestic  meekness.  Have  the 
days  of  roaring  irony  and  sarcasm  gone  by  with  Palmer- 
ston  ?  Palmerston  had  no  peer  for  ruling,  for  he  heartily 
relished  it.  How  he  could  laugh  at  the  "  puerile  vanity 
of  consistency !"  The  nation  laughed  with  him.  He 
ruled  as  well  by  his  laugh  as  by  his  judgment.  Cobden 
is  gone.  Bright  and  Russell  lag  superfluous;  Goschen  ci- 
phers only ;  and  even  Gladstone  is  half  retired.  Brough- 
am, that  incarnate  encyclopedia,  whose  coach  with  its  B 
on  the  panels  reminded  Sydney  Smith  that  it  had  a  B  on 
the  outside  and  a  wasp  in  the  inside — Brougham,  he  too 
belongs  to  the  rear,  with  the  Bolingbrokes,  Pitts,  Sheri- 
clans,  Burkes,  O'Connells,  Cannings,  and  Peels — almost 
myths  for  their  rare  graces  of  wit  and  oratory.  Disraeli 
himself,  though  a  power,  wields  his  weapon  wearily ;  and 
Bernal  Osborne  hardly  essays  to  play  his  old  role  as 
Mercutio. 

Are  public  life  and  debate  belittled  in  the  public  es- 
teem in  England  or  upon  the  Continent?  The  Parlia- 
mentary sessions  at  Rome  are  scarcely  sessions,  if  we 
are  to  believe  Mr.  Trollope.  How  sombre  is  his  Italy — 
in  sackcloth  and  ashes,  her  head  drooping  on  her  breast, 
her  hands  hanging  listlessly  by  her  sides — sitting  solitary 
and  sleepy  in  the  deserted  hall  upon  Monte  Citorio  !  The 
entire  Chamber  consists  of  five  hundred  and  eight.  The 
quorum  is  a  majority,  as  in  our  system  ;  yet  for  month 
and  month  business  is  impossible,  and  that,  too,  at  the 
Grand  Capitol.  Is  it  because  Italy  pays  no  salary  to  her 
Deputies?  Salary  seems  hardly  to  keep  our  Congress 


1 88  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

full.  Is  the  real  reason  the  lack  of  piquant,  eloquent 
debate,  or  has  the  omnipresent  newspaper  absorbed  the 
other  "  estates  ?"  There  is  no  complaint  of  this  kind  in 
France.  Even  now,  when  Versailles  is  the  Parliament- 
ary capital,  there  is  a  freshness  which  allures  to  the 
Chamber,  springing  as  well  from  the  exceptional  and 
transitory  nature  of  the  organism  as  from  the  inflamma- 
ble vivacity  of  Gaulic  and  galling  debate.  The  wit  of 
the  tribune  is,  however,  too  finical  for  general  apprecia- 
tion. When  De  Remusat  dashes  an  epigram  at  an  im- 
potent ministry,  Paris  chuckles.  "  It  has  found,"  he  said, 
"a  new  way  out  of  a  false  position — by  remaining  in  it." 
The  retention  of  office  after  defeat  is  not  a  new  subject 
for  the  pasquinade  and  the  epigram,  but  no  sprucer  spec- 
imen has  yet  appeared  than  this  of  the  departed  states- 
man. 

Nothing  so  arouses  the  French  Chamber  as  a  personal 
imputation.  The  Deputies  are  never  used  to  it,  always 
resent  it,  and  are  always  at  it.  They  give  every  thing  a 
personal  turn.  Gambetta  could  have  a  duel  a  month  for 
announcing  merely  abstractions.  They  do  not  distin- 
guish between  the  official  and  the  person.  Nor,  for  the 
matter  of  that,  do  others.  Mr.  Garfield,  Speaker/^  tern- 
pore^  once  touched  this  idea  daintily  when  some  member 
intimated  that  the  moral  weight  of  the  chair  favored  a 
motion.  "  The  chair  has  no  moral  weight.  Its  office  is 
to  keep  order."  The  most  logical  specimen  of  wit  at 
the  English  Parliamentary  noonday  turned  on  this  point. 
Fox  reprehended  Pitt  for  resting  the  sincerity  of  a  minis- 
terial declaration  on  the  purity  of  his  private  character. 
"  Such  conduct,"  said  Fox,  "  is  by  no  means  Parliament- 
ary, nor  could  it  in  this  instance  have  much  weight.  His 
private  character  has  no  reproach.  As  a  minister  he  has 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  INDIVIDUALLY  CONSIDERED.     189 

no  character"  A  similar  point  was  once  made  by  Sheri- 
dan on  Pitt ;  but  Pitt,  in  reply,  was  scorching.  He  turn- 
ed his  electricity  upon  Sheridan  by  likening  his  tirades 
to  the  fizz  and  froth  of  an  uncorked  bottle.  Then  the 
caricaturist  drew  a  cartoon,  "  Uncorking  Old  Sherry." 

Looking  at  the  stirring  personal  debates  growing  out 
of  the  Adams-Clay  coalition  and  the  Jackson  administra- 
tion in  our  country,  we  look  in  vain  for  something  rose- 
ate and  fragrant.  Scarcely  any  plant  appears  on  the 
surface,  except  that  which,  like  the  cactus,  shows  a  hot 
sun  and  a  prickly  vegetation.  Did  these  fierce  personal 
invectives,  which  often  led  to  the  duel,  have  no  relief  in 
the  atmosphere  of  social  and  legislative  geniality  ?  Was 
Benton  always  hectoring  Clay?  Was  Randolph  always 
studying  how  most  bitterly  to  bite  ?  Was  M'Duffie  ever 
alert  to  thunder  and  lighten?  Men  then  talked  about 
halters  and  honor,  contempt  and  monsters,  conspiracies 
and  treason,  in  a  way  to  astound  our  later  day.  This 
talk  is  not  less  surprising  to  us  than  would  be  the  re-ap- 
pearance of  those  departed  Senators  with  the  then  fash- 
ionable blue  coat  and  brass  buttons,  the  invariable  plug 
of  tobacco  and  gold-headed  cane,  the  immense  flux  from 
the  salivary  gland,  and  the  incessant,  magnificent  profan- 
ity. There  were  fewer  members  then.  They  were  bet- 
ter known,  and  made  more  mark  than  now.  A  philippic 
on  the  humblest  was  recognized,  and  had  its  run.  There 
were  two  Barbours  from  Virginia,  one  a  member  of  the 
Senate,  and  the  other  of  the  House — both  able  men. 
One,  named  James,  was  ornate  and  verbose ;  the  other, 
Philip,  was  close  and  cogent  as  a  debater.  A  wag  once 
wrote  on  the  wall  of  the  House : 

"  Two  Barbers  to  shave  our  Congress  long  did  try ; 
One  shaves  with  froth,  the  other  he  shaves  dry  !" 


19°  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

There  is  always  in  or  about  Congress  a  class  of  good 
fellows  more  witty  in  a  social  than  in  a  debating  way. 
The  court  always  had  a  jester.  Why  not  Congress? 
Charles  I.  had  "Archie."  His  sayings  were  called 
"  arch."  Such  men  as  Ogle,  of  Pennsylvania ;  M'Connell, 
of  Alabama ;  and  William  H,  Polk,  of  Tennessee,  may  be 
remembered  in  this  socially  jovial  connection ;  but  their 
printed  or  public  humor,  except  in  little  spurts,  is  hardly 
to  be  found,  even  if  it  existed. 

"  If  you  believe  in  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolu- 
tions, follow  in  the  footsteps  of  Captain  Andrew  Jackson  ; 
then,  sir,  I  hang  my  hammer  on  your  anvil,"  said  the  ec- 
centric M'Connell  to  President  Polk.  It  was  M'Connell 
who  once  suggested  a  homestead  for  every  man,  matron, 
and  maid  in  the  United  States,  who  was  the  head  of  a 
family. 

"The  gentleman  asks  me  who  are  my  friends,"  said 
Etheridge,  of  Tennessee.  "  I  answer,  any  body  who 
speaks  the  English  language,  and  don't  spell  constitution 
with  a  K." 

These  dashes  of  humor  generally  have  a  personal 
tang.  Before  describing  more  important  humorists,  let 
me  set  them  within  a  frame  of  lesser  brilliants  of  this 
character.  General  Butler  once  rallied  General  Banks 
on  his  fine  theatric  voice.  "You  say  you  read  my 
speeches?"  said  Banks.  "I  read  them,"  said  Butler, 
"but  your  manner  and  voice  were  not  in  them,  and  hence 
they  were  ineffectual." 

One  Senator  had  a  pompous  habit.  General  Schurz 
being  accused  of  that^style,  with  mock  modesty  hinted 
that  he  did  not  want  to  encroach  on  the  exclusive  privi- 
lege of  New  York.  Senator  Carpenter  was  not  less  fa- 
cetious, though  less  good-tempered,  when  on  the  French- 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  INDIVIDUALLY  CONSIDERED.     191 

arms  debate  he  punctured  the  alleged  egotism  of  Senator 
Sumner  to  the  quick.  "He  identifies  himself  so  com- 
pletely with  the  universe  that  he  is  not  at  all  certain 
whether  he  is  part  of  the  universe,  or  the  universe  is  part 
of  him.  He  is  a  reviser  of  the  decalogue.  You  will  soon 
see  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  revised,  corrected,  and 
greatly  enlarged  and  improved  by  Charles  Sumner." 

Mr.  Sumner's  gravity  often  led  to  these  little  missiles, 
but  they  fell  quite  harmless,  for  they  were  feathered  with 
the  lightest  of  levity.  "Ah,"  said  Mr.  Conkling  to  Mr. 
Sumner,  "  I  fell  into  an  error  by  supposing  the  Senator 
was  paying  me  attention.  His  mind  is  roving  at  large  in 
that  immense  domain  which  it  occupies." 

Judge  John  C.  Wright,  of  Ohio,  so  many  years  the  in- 
spiration of  the  Cincinnati  Gazette  and  of  his  party,  was 
a  member  of  Congress  when  pungent  wit  was  apt  to  be 
called  out  to  Bladensburg.  Personality  was  then  as  com- 
mon as  courage.  His  pluck  and  his  humor  were  once 
shown  in  this  scene :  While  he  was  answering  Mr.  Ran- 
dolph, General  Hamilton,  of  South  Carolina,  who  was 
one  of  the  worshipers  of  Randolph,  sprung  to  his  feet, 
and,  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  under  great  excitement,  said  : 
"The  most  infernal  tongue  that  was  ever  placed  in  a 
man's  head,  and  wholly  irresponsible.  Challenge  him, 
and  he  will  swear  he  can't  see  the  length  of  his  arm  !" 
This  idea  grew  out  of  the  answer  of  Mr.  Wright  to  the 
challenge  of  Romulus  M.  Saunders :  "  I  have  received 
your  challenge,  but  can  not  accept  it.  Owing  to  the  im- 
perfection of  my  vision,  I  could  not  tell  your  honor  from 
a  sheep  ten  steps."  The  moment  Mr.  Wright  took  his 
seat  a  member  rose,  and,  with  a  voice  like  a  newly  weaned 
mule  colt,  said,  "  The  gentleman  reminds  me  of  an  old 
hen  I  have  at  home  that  is  always  cackling  and  never 


192  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

lays  an  egg."  Then  Judge  Wright  desired,  coolly,  to  read 
a  copy  of  a  criminal  indictment  found  against  the  mem- 
ber, and  the  personality  was  not  so  humorous. 

These  personalities  are  a  piquant  kind  of  humor  which 
often  becomes  caustic  wit.  It  touches  the  peculiar  vo- 
cations, personal  foibles,  or  physical  peculiarities  of  mem- 
bers. This  is  not  the  highest  order  of  festive  legislation, 
but  it  is  often  used.  Every  one  laughs  at  a  hit  about 
personal  obliquities  in  body  or  mind.  Even  the  bad  lit- 
tle boy  made  domestic  fun  when  he  asked,  "Aunty !  did 
God  make  that  man  ?"  "  Certainly,  my  dear,"  was  the  re- 
ply ;  "  and  why  do  you  ask  such  a  question  ?"  "Because, 
aunty,  he  didn't  make  the  hinges  to  his  eyes  on  straight," 
said  our  little  incipient  mechanical  engineer.  Such  oc- 
casions give  rise  for  the  readiest  retort.  Sheridan  was 
once  twitted  by  Pitt  on  his  theatrical  pursuits — "  Sui 
plausu  gaudere  theatri"  He  retorted  on  the  youthful 
premier :  "  If  ever  I  again  engage  in  the  composition  he 
alludes  to,  I  may  be  tempted  to  improve  on  one  of  Ben 
Jonson's  best  characters — the  character  of  the  Angry 
Boy  in  '  The  Alchemist.'  " 

To  call  a  large  man  "  My  feeble  friend,"  or  a  little  man 
"  The  gigantic  gentleman  ;"  to  dilate  upon  a  loud-voiced 
member,  or  cry  "  Louder  "  to  his  loudness ;  to  mimic  his 
intonations,  or  "take  off"  his  hair  or  wig,  make  sport  of 
its  color,  or  emphasize  the  peculiarities  of  his  dress  or 
toilet,  of  his  eyes,  ears,  or  legs — these  little  diversions  are 
as  common  to  the  legislature  as  to  the  stage.  They 
make  their  momentary  music,  but  scarcely  rise  into  the 
risible  utilities  of  the  logical  ad  absurdum. 

A  palpable  hit  of  this  kind  may  sometimes  be  defend- 
ed, as  when  a  man  wears  his  clothes  to  illustrate  his  own 
business,  as  a  woolen  manufacturer  for  a  tariff,  or,  vice 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS  INDIVIDUALLY  CONSIDERED.     193 

zvrsd,  a  foreign  suit  to  show  the  amenities  of  free  trade. 
Then  the  toilet  is  subordinated  to  the  topic.  The  man  is 
measured  by  the  worth  of  his  clothes  as  well  as  by  his  ora- 
tory. Often  references  are  made  to  the  ambition  of  mem- 
bers. Senators,  especially,  who  are  Presidential  aspirants 
receive  these  hits.  They  are-fair,  and  are  relished  :  they 
are  the  pungent  penalties  of  prominence.  Prominent 
members  are  generally  the  butt  of  the  most  ridicule.  In 
the  instances  heretofore  given,  during  calls  of  the  House, 
these  personal  observations  appear  in  deshabille.  In  the 
next  chapter  the  personal  points,  not  collective  so  much 
as  individual,  are  gathered  in  one  sheaf  of  spears.  Nor 
are  these  freedoms  peculiar  to  Congress.  On  the  ques- 
tion of  sending  the  Prince  of  Wales  to  India,  and  paying 
a  large  sum,  it  was  piquantly  put,  that,  as  the  object  to  be 
Instructed  about  was  the  need  of  the  empire,  the  respon- 
sible officials  to  be  sent  ought  to  be  the  ministers,  and 
not  the  prince. 

9 


194  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 


XII. 

LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS— HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT. 

"  His  comic  humor  kept  the  world  in  awe, 
And  Laughter  frightened  Folly  more  than  Law." 

CHURCHILL. 

THE  jets  of  humor  collected  in  the  preceding  chapter 
are  from  a  class  which  gave  a  momentary  sparkle  to  the 
sluggish  waters  of  debate.  But  they  do  not  fill  our  idea 
of  the  humor  of  a  great  forum.  Have  we,  too,  followed 
the  hearse  of  our  great  orators  and  humorists?  Who 
can  fill  the  place  of  Ben  Hardin  or  Tom  Corwin  ?  No 
one  has  approached  either,  unless  it  be  another  Ken- 
tuckian,  J.  Proctor  Knott,  the  present  member  from 
Bardstown.  In  him  Kentucky  gives  to  us  a  second  edi- 
tion of  Hardin,  revised  and  improved.  He  is  the  fresh 
volume.  It  is  elegant,  scholarly,  piquant,  and  bound  in 
superior  morocco,  and  clasped  in  undeniable  gold.  Our 
people  are  not  yet  through  reading  his  Duluth  speech. 
It  hits  the  American  sense  of  extravagance,  which,  as  I 
undertook  in  previous  papers  to  show,  is  the  reservoir 
whence  flows  most  of  our  fun.  It  is  in  his  magic  mir- 
ror that  the  identical  and  ironical  Colonel  Sellers  and 
Senator  Dillworthy  are  seen.  His  wit  took  down  and 
off  and  out  the  most  grandiose  schemes  and  schemers, 
in  the  most  superlative  way. 

These  three  members  of  Congress — Hardin,  Corwin, 
and  Knott — are  selected  to  illustrate  this  extravagant 


LEGISLATIVE   HUMORS — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     195 

type  of  humor.  Whence  came  this  inspiration?  All 
three  were  Kentuckians.  It  is  said  of  Sheridan  that  he 
ripened  a  witty  idea  with  a  glass  of  port ;  and  if  it  result- 
ed happily,  another  glass  was  the  reward.  Like  the  Ken- 
tucky Congressman  who  took  two  cocktails  before  break- 
fast. When  asked  why,  he  said,  "  One  makes  me  feel 
like  another  fellow,  and  then  I  must  treat  the  other  fel- 
low !"  Is  the  humor  which  Kentucky  gave,  and  gives, 
owing  to  any  peculiar  juice  or  humor  growing  out  of  her 
soil?  Is  it  drawn  from  the  "still"  air  of  delightful 
studies  ? 

"OLD    BEN    HARDIN." 

Governor  Corwin  once  told  me  that  Hardin  was  the 
most  entertaining  man  he  ever  knew.  He  had  an  ex- 
haustless  fund  of  anecdote,  and  with  it  great  nattTral  parts 
and  acquired  culture.  His  celebrity  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century  as  a  Southern  Whig  member  of  Congress  was 
not  altogether  owing  to  his  gift  of  remembering  or  telling 
good  stories,  nor  to  his  bonhomie.  Now,  while  Hardin  is 
not  to  be  classed  with  these  characters  which  I  have  de- 
scribed, a  greater  disadvantage  attends  a  sketch  of  his 
career  as  a  humorist.  He  is  not  reported  according  to 
his  reputation.  His  quarter  of  a  century  of  service  fails 
to  show  the  voluminous  fun  with  which  he  enlivened  and 
enforced  his  positions.  Here  and  there  we  have  a  few 
shots  from  small-arms,  as  when  he  said,  meekly,  that  "  If 
like  a  sheep  I  am  shorn,  unlike  a  sheep,  I  will  make  a 
noise  about  it."  When  denouncing  extravagant  naval 
salaries,  and  referring  to  the  naval  lobby,  he  exclaimed, 
"  Their  march  may  be  on  the  mountain  wave,  but  their 
home  is — in  the  gallery!"  I  have  the  "substance"  of 
one  of  his  speeches  delivered  in  the  hall  of  the  House. 
It  was  in  self-vindication  about  a  local  and  now  obsolete 


196  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

matter.  It  is  only  eighty  pages.  He  began  by  saying 
that  he  had  pleaded  more  causes  and  defended  more  men 
than  any  lawyer  in  Kentucky,  yet  never  was  he  under 
the  painful  necessity  of  defending  himself  before.  This 
speech  shows  a  remarkable  array  of  facts,  a  keen  appre- 
ciation of  political  ethics,  a  fervid  patriotism,  a  touching 
pathos,  but  hardly  one  gleam  of  his  reputed  rare  humor. 
Referring  to  the  Kentucky  families  whose  sons,  with  his 
own,  were  warring  in  Mexico,  and  speaking  of  the  Gov- 
ernor, who  was  his  antagonist,  he  said :  "  The  next  news 
from  the  theatre  of  war  may  put  our  families  in  mourn- 
ing. But  in  the  midst  of  this  general  distress,  it  is  con- 
soling to  see  with  what  philosophy  the  Governor  bears  it. 
He  slowly  walks  from  the  palace  to  the  Secretary's  office, 
and  then  back  to  the  palace,  with  stoical  firmness  that 
does  honor  to  his  resolution.  Cato,  when  in  Utica,  never 
showed  more.  He  knows  that  none  of  his  family  is  in 
danger.  They  would  have  been  soldiers  'if  it  had  not 
been  for  those  vile  guns/  The  only  danger  to  his  family 
is  that  they  may  be  mashed  up  in  the  palace  gate  in  a 
rush  for  offices ;  and  when  they  get  them,  they  can  truly 
say  that  they  are  competent  to  the  emoluments  thereof." 
This  was  the  only  smile  in  this  lengthened  speech. 

It  is  said  that  Hardin  was  a  rough-and-ready  debater, 
that  his  oratory  was  racy  of  the  Kentucky  stump  and 
soil,  and  that  he  had  more  pugnacity  than  polish.  He 
was  known  by  the  sobriquet  of"  Meat-axe  Hardin."  Ran- 
dolph said  of  him  that  he  was  a  butcher-knife  sharpened 
on  a  brick-bat.  This  is  not  my  impression  from  the  mea- 
gre report  of  his  speeches,  nor  from  the  articles  now  be- 
ing published  about  him  by  Mr.  Haycraft,  of  Elizabeth- 
town,  Kentucky.  It  is  not  the  true  impression. 

Hardin  was  a  man  of  disciplined  mind.     He  was  not 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     197 

at  all  of  the  Crockett-Boone  order.  He  had  a  native 
chivalry  and  independence  which  were  representative  of 
a  border  class  at  that  day,  but  he  was  a  man  full  of  clas- 
sic, historic,  legal,  and  other  resources.  He  had  the  va- 
ried armory  which  equips  for  general  or  special  debate. 
Like  a  good  lawyer,  and  with  a  wonderful  memory  and 
quick  perception,  he  was  the  very  man  for  the  "  occasion 
sudden."  But  he  was  rather  of  the  humorous  than  of  the 
witty  kind.  The  butcher-knife  is  too  coarse  and  the  ven- 
detta dirk  too  polished  to  describe  his  quality. 

He  was  born  in  Pennsylvania,  Westmoreland  County, 
removed  with  his  family  to  Kentucky  when  a  boy,  and 
was  educated  by  an  old  Irish  teacher,  who  was  a  good 
linguist.  The  teacher  killed  a  man,  and  had  to  move  to 
another  county.  Young  Ben  followed  him,  and  changed 
the  venue,  to  finish  in  the  dead  languages.  He  studied 
law  with  Felix  Grundy,  and  began  to  practice  in  1806. 
He  never  left  his  profession  till  he  died,  in  1852.  He 
was  on  one  side  of  every  important  case  in  those  early 
days.  His  animation  allowed  no  juror  to  slumber.  He 
was  not  only  successful  because  of  generous  reading,  but, 
by  rare  tact,  he  could  gain  a  case  by  "side-by"  remark. 
Here  is  an  instance,  and  it  serves  to  show  the  secret  of 
his  legislative  humor  and  success : 

Henry  Ditto  had  some  sheep  killed  by  a  dog.  Ditto 
shot  the  clog.  A  suit  for  damages  was  the  consequence. 
Mr.  Hardin  appeared  for  Ditto.  The  trial  occupied  two 
days.  The  cause  was  argued  with  great  ability  on  each 
side,  and  the  jury  retired.  After  being  out  an  hour  or 
two  they  came  back  into  court  for  instructions  on  some 
law-point.  After  being  instructed,  and  while  ascending 
the  stairway,  one  of  them  turned  and  said,  "Judge,  if  the 
jury  is  hung,  what  will  be  the  consequence  ?"  Mr.  Har- 


198  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

din  replied,  "The  consequence  will  be  that  twelve  hon- 
est men  are  hung  for  one  sheep-stealing  dog." 

It  is  related  of  Mr.  Buchanan  that  in  early  life  he  went 
to  Kentucky  to  settle.  He  saw  Hardin  in  court,  dressed 
in  his  unbleached  linen,  careless  and  clownish.  But  he 
heard  him  argue,  and,  turning  from  the  court-house,  he 
said,  "  If  such  looking  men  are  so  smart  in  Kentucky,  it 
is  no  place  for  me." 

Hardin  was  in  the  Twenty-fourth  Congress.  We  had 
then  unfriendly  relations  with  France.  A  fierce  debate 
springs  up  between  Cambreling,  John  Quincy  Adams, 
Evans,  of  Maine,  Wise,  and  others,  in  which  Hardin  is  a 
conspicuous  figure.  He  plays  his  irony  upon  the  inde- 
fatigable commercial  member  from  New  York,  Mr.  Cam- 
breling. He  compares  him  most  amusingly  with  Daniel 
Webster  ;  then,  turning  on  Mr.  Adams  as  the  Sempronius, 
"  whose  voice  was  still  for  war,"  he  reminds  him  that  in 
the  sequel  Sempronius  deserted  to  Caesar,  while  Lucius 
(to  whom  he  likened  himself)  remained  faithful  to  Cato, 
and  fought  it  out  for  peace  like  a  man. 

Mr.  Hardin's  allusions  to  the  classics  are  not  infre- 
quent. He  especially  loved  Homer,  and,  as  will  be  seen 
hereafter,  he  became  indissolubly  linked  with  one  of  the 
Homeric  heroes — the  "  snarling  Thersites."  Caleb  Cush- 
ing  forged  the  link  in  a  graceful  retort.  Was  this  love 
of  the  classics  one  of  the  levers  of  this  Kentuckian's 
power  over  men  ? 

It  is  related  of  him  that  when  one  of  his  own  side 
made  a  speech  he  took  his  hat  and  left  the  House.  But 
when  Rufus  Choate  began  his  first  mellifluous  speech 
this  "meat-axe  "  man  lingered  and  listened,  and,  listening, 
was  lost  in  rapture.  This  demi-god  of  the  Western  hus- 
tings sits  fascinated  and  enmeshed  by  the  involutions, 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     199 

all  full  of  depth  and  all  starred  with  learning,  with  which 
Choate  delighted  his  ear  and  mind.  Was  there  no 
refined  susceptibility  in  this  rough  and  hardy  man? 
Choate  brought  the  music  out  of  his  soul  as  the  wind 
does  out  of  the  woods.  He  held  Hardin  as  with  the 
glittering  eye  of  the  ancient  mariner.  It  was  done  by 
no  other  necromancy  than  the  silver  tongue  and  the  gold- 
en thought,  inwoven  and  intertwisted  by  a  skill  that  would 
puzzle  a  Genoese  filigree-worker. 

Few  men  in  Congress  appreciated  to  his  full  worth 
Rufus  Choate.  Was  it  because  he  was  too  fond  of  the 
odd  ends  of  learning,  or  that  his  rhetoric  was  too  involved 
in  fancies  and  frolics?  Certain  it  is  that  while  he  en- 
tranced Hardin,  he  did  not  make  the  impression  on  the 
Senate  or  on  Congress  which  we  would  expect.  When 
M'Duffie,  in  his  rude  way,  on  the  tariff  question,  charged 
Choate  with  weaving  the  texture  of  a  cobweb,  and  pick- 
ing up  worm-eaten  pamphlets  to  form  an  argument  for 
the  leader  of  a  band  of  highway  robbers,  and  held  him 
up  to  ridicule  as  a  humming-bird  in  a  flower-garden  or  a 
butterfly  in  a  farm-yard,  how  did  this  splendid  orator  re- 
spond ?  This  man,  "  only  not  divine,"  who  even  yet  holds 
in  thrall  the  gentlest  and  brightest  of  New  England's 
bravery  of  intellect,  actually  and  elaborately  "denied  the 
facts  and  called  for  proof,"  as  some  Western  lawyer  once 
did  in  an  answer  in  chancery.  "  The  accusation  is  ground- 
less. Let  the  Senator  sustain  it  if  he  can."  Imagine 
Butler,  Hoar,  or  Dawes  answering  such  a  speech  other- 
wise than  by  a  countercharge  of  chivalric  pungency ! 
Yet  the  large-hearted  and  broad -humored  Kentuckian 
threaded  delightfully  the  labyrinthine  beauty  of  Choate's 
rhetoric,  and  saw  something  in  the  legal  dialectician  and 
in  the  Gothic  style  of  his  multifarious  oratory  that  enam- 


200  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

ored  him  by  a  witchery  beyond  the  reach  of  art.  What 
is  the  mystery?  It  is  the  same  charm  of  life  and  heart 
which  in  our  first  paper  we  remarked  in  Webster,  Ran- 
dolph, and  Burgess,  and  in  all  those  who  have  the  sus- 
ceptibility to  humor.  It  is  in  the  innate  gentleness  which, 
as  in  Hardin's  case,  shone  in  his  life  and  triumphed  in 
his  death ;  for  at  the  last,  when  dying  at  threescore-and- 
ten,  Mr.  Hardin  called  around  him  all  of  his  kith  and  the 
brethren  of  his  Methodist  communion,  and  offered  up 
from  those  lips,  which  had  so  often  commanded  in  great 
debate,  the  gentlest  orison  which  ever  preceded  the  de- 
parting soul  to  its  God. 

THOMAS   CORWIN,  OF   OHIO. 

In  all  the  elements,  from  the  lowest  burlesque  to  the 
finest  wit,  Thomas  Corwin  was  confessedly  the  master. 
He  drew  from  the  arsenal  all  the  weapons  of  parliament- 
ary warfare ;  but  how  seldom  he  used  them  !  His  effu- 
sions were  brilliant,  fervid,  eloquent,  pathetic,  but,  above 
all,  his  satire,  while  keen,  was  not  poisoned  or  barbed 
with  ill-temper.  It  was  pertinent  and  powerful,  demol- 
ishing, yet  stingless.  The  motto  at  the  head  of  this  chap- 
ter, which  is  the  description  of  Shiel,  describes  the  humor 
of  Corwin.  He  was  a  great  lawyer — as  great  as  Ogden 
Hoffman,  and  far  greater  than  he  in  Congress.  His  mind 
was  full,  and  his  words  were  thoughtful.  He  was  no  cyn- 
ic. He  was  a  scholar.  His  mind  had  ranged  through 
the  bounds  of  human  knowledge.  His  eloquence  on  the 
stump  and  at  the  bar,  in  the  House  and  Senate,  when 
pleading  against  the  Mexican  war,  or  for  compromise 
before  our  civil  war,  whether  he  struck  the  basso  of  sor- 
row or  the  tenor  of  merriment,  was  full  of  divinest  sym- 
pathy. Yet  he  is  best  remembered  for  lighter  efforts,  as 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     2OI 

when  he  started  in  full  opulence  of  illustration  after  the 
foible  of  a  fellow-member.  No  one,  unless  he  has  seen  his 
facial  expression  and  heard  his  variety  of  tone,  can  im- 
agine his  power.  The  play  of  his  dark  countenance  was 
the  prelude  to  his  witty  thought.  What  Biilwer  has  sung 
of  Canning,  who  "  schemed  for  the  gaze  and  plotted  for 
the  cheer,"  may  be  more  truly  said  of  Corwin  : 

"  Read  him  not ;  'tis  unfair.     Behold  him  rise, 
And  hear  him  speak!     The  House  all  ears  and  eyes  !" 

It  is  said  of  Alvan  Stewart,  the  eloquent  abolitionist  of 
New  York,  that  he  could  read  a  dry  affidavit  so  as  to  up- 
set the  gravity  of  bench  and  bar.  It  was  in  the  manner. 
In  this  line  Corwin  was  primus  inter  pares ;  or,  rather,  he 
was  simply  peerless.  His  face  and  its  serio-jocoseness 
would  have  been  the  fortune  of  any  player.  "Will  you 
have  condiments  in  your  coffee  ?"  said  a  good  landlady  to 
him,  as  he  was  once  traversing  my  old  Ohio  district,  on 
the  "  weevil  platform."  Imagine  that  face,  and  the  sol- 
emn courtesy  of  his  response  !  "  Pepper  and  mustard, 
madam,  but  no  salt,  thank  you  !" 

"  Cromwell,"  said  Corwin,  in  1861,  "  looked  to  the  Lord 
— had  great  confidence  in  the  great  Ruler  of  the  universe, 
but  he  had  a  certain  confidence  in  charcoal  and  saltpe- 
tre, when  it  was  kept  dry."  "I  think,"  said  he  again, 
discussing  compromises,  ironically,  "  the  best  course  was 
to  hang  John  Brown ;  I  think  he  said  so-  himself.  He 
thought  he  was  worth  more  for  hanging  purposes  than 
for  any  other !" 

AVhether  this  rare  gift  of  humor  came  to  him  from  his 
Magyar  ancestry,  or  was  induced  by  influences  in  his  na- 
tive county  of  Bourbon,  Kentucky — whether  it  was  a  part 
of  his  early  training  or  practice  when  a  "  wagon-boy,"  it 


202  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

is  certain  that  few  men  were  ever  so  effective  in  its  pub- 
lic use.  As  early  as  fourteen  he  had  the  action,  empha- 
sis, and  gesture  which  make  the  rhetorical  youth.  His 
childhood  was  father  to  the  orator.  His  independence  of 
thought  and  his  lucid  expression  we  are  not  called  upon 
in  this  paper  to  discuss.  His  humor  makes  one  of  the 
green  spots  in  the  Congressional  desert.  It  would  flood 
and  fructify  a  sphere  of  drought  and  death. 

One  of  its  best  illustrations  is  his  answer  to  General 
Crarey,  of  Michigan,  who  had  accused  General  Harrison 
of  want  of  strategy  at  Tippecanoe.  Crarey  was  a  militia 
general.  The  droll  manner  of  the  response  can  not  be 
printed.  The  humorous  orator  described  a  training-day 
—the  leader  of  the  host  on  horseback,  the  retreat  to  a 
neighboring  grocery,  the  trenchant  blade  of  the  general 
remorselessly  slaying  water-melons,  and  the  various  feats 
upon  the  bloodless  field — in  such  a  style  that  his  victim 
was  ever  after  known  as  "  the  late  General  Crarey." 

Never  was  speech  couched  in  a  droller  vein.  The 
time  of  its  delivery  is  Saturday  afternoon,  when  a  satur- 
nalia is  given,  as  he  demurely  hinted  in  the  proem,  to 
servants  of  good  masters.  The  way  he  touches  the  non 
sequitur  of  the  debate  is  felicity  itself.  The  pending  bill 
is  about  the  Cumberland  road,  but  the  debate  is  on  Gen- 
eral Harrison's  war  record.  Before  members  can  vote 
money  for  the  road,  they  must  know  how  the  Indians  at 
Tippecanoe  were  painted — whether  red,  black,  or  blue. 
The  appropriation  in  1840  is  identical  with  the  tactics  of 
an  Indian  war  in  1811. 

Then  he  begins  quietly  to  lift  high  his  opponent  in  the 
controversy  that  he  may  drop  him  lower.  General  Cra- 
rey is  called  an  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  we  in 
America  can  turn  our  hands  to  any  business.  On  a 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     203 

question  involving  a  subtle  knowledge  of  strategy,  what 
preparations  had  not  General  Crarey  made  for  the  criti- 
cism !  But  there  is  only  one  way  to  give  this  speech  its 
real  meaning,  and  that  is  by  quoting  : 

"  He  has  announced  to  the  House  that  he  is  a  militia 
general  on  the  peace  establishment.  That  he  is  a  lawyer 
we  know,  tolerably  well  read  in  '  Tidd's  Practice '  and '  Es- 
pinasse's  Nisi  Prius.'  These  studies,  so  happily  adapted 
to  the  subject  of  war,  with  an  appointment  to  the  militia 
in  time  of  peace,  furnish  him'  at  once  with  all  the  knowl- 
edge necessary  to  discourse  to  us,  as  from  high  authority, 
upon  all  the  mysteries  in  the  '  trade  of  death.' 

"Again,  Mr.  Speaker,  it  must  occur  to  every  one  that 
we,  to  whom  these  criticisms  are  addressed,  being  all  col- 
onels, at  least,  and  most  of  us,  like  the  gentleman  himself, 
brigadiers,  are,  of  all  conceivable  tribunals,  the  best  quali- 
fied to  decide  any  nice  point  connected  with  military  sci- 
ence. 

"  I  trust,  as  we  are  all  brother  officers,  that  the  gentle- 
man from  Michigan, 'and  the  two  hundred  and  forty  col- 
onels or  generals  of  this  honorable  House,  will  receive 
what  I  have  to  say  as  coming  from  an  old  brother  in 
arms,  and  addressed  to  them  in  a  spirit  of  candor, 

" '  Such  as  becomes  comrades  free, 
Reposing  after  victory.' 

.  "  Sir,  we  all  know  the  military  studies  of  the  gentleman 
from  Michigan  before  he  was  promoted.  I  take  it  to  be 
beyond  a  reasonable  doubt  that  he  had  perused  with  great 
care  the  title-page  of  '  Baron  Steuben.7  Nay,  I  go  further. 
As  the  gentleman  has  incidentally  assured  us  he  is  prone 
to  look  into  musty  and  neglected  volumes,  I  venture  to  as- 
sert, without  vouching  the  fact  from  personal  knowledge, 


204  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

that  he  has  prosecuted  his  researches  so  far  as  to  be  able 
to  know  that  the  rear  rank  stands  right  behind  the  front. 
This,  I  think,  is  fairly  inferable  from  what  I  understand 
him  to  say  of  the  two  lines  of  encampment  at  Tippeca- 
noe.  Thus  we  see,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  the  gentleman  from 
Michigan,  so  far  as  study  can  give  us  knowledge  of  a  sub- 
ject, comes  before  us  with  claims  to  great  profundity. 
But  this  is  a  subject  which,  of  all  others,  requires  the  aid 
of  actual  experience  to  make  us  wise.  Now,  the  gentle- 
man, being  a  militia  general,  as  he  has  told  us,  his  broth- 
er officers,  in  that  simple  statement  has  revealed  the  glo- 
rious history  of  toils,  privations,  sacrifices,  and  bloody 
scenes  through  which  we  know  from  experience  and  ob- 
servation a  militia  officer  in  time  of  peace  is  sure  to  pass. 
We  all,  in  fancy,  now  see  the  gentleman  from  Michigan 
in  that  most  dangerous  and  glorious  event  in  the  life  of 
a  militia  general  on  the  peace  establishment — a  parade- 
day — the  day  for  which  all  the  other  days  of  his  life  seem 
to  have  been  made. 

"  We  can  see  the  troops  in  motion  ;  umbrellas,  hoe  and 
axe  handles,  and  other  like  deadly  implements  of  war, 
overshadowing  all  the  field,  when,  lo !  the  leader  of  the 
host  approaches. 

"  *  Far  off  his  coming  shines.' 

His  plume,  white,  after  the  fashion  of  the  great  Bourbon, 
is  of  ample  length,  and  reads  its  doleful  history  in  the  be- 
reaved necks  and  bosoms  of  forty  neighboring  hen-roosts. 
Like  the  great  Suwaroff,  he  seems  somewhat  careless  in 
forms  and  points  of  dress.  Hence  his  epaulets  may  be 
on  his  shoulders,  back,  or  sides,  but  still  gleaming,  glori- 
ously gleaming,  in  the  sun.  Mounted  he  is,  too,  let  it  not 
be  forgotten.  Need  I  describe  to  the  colonels  and  gen- 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     205 

erals  of  this  honorable  House  the  steed  which  heroes  be- 
stride on  such  occasions  ?  No,  I  see  the  memory  of  oth- 
er days  is  with  you.  You  see  before  you  the  gentleman 
from  Michigan  mounted  on  his  crop-eared,  bushy-tailed 
mare,  the  singular  obliquities  of  whose  hinder  limbs  are 
described  by  that  most  expressive  phrase, '  sickle  hams ' 
— her  height  fourteen  hands, '  all  told  ;'  yes,  sir,  there  you 
see  his  '  steed  that  laughs  at  the  shaking  of  the  spear/ 
that  is,  his  '  war-horse  whose  neck  is  clothed  with  thun- 
der.' Mr.  Speaker,  we  have  glowing  descriptions  in  his- 
tory of  Alexander  the  Great  and  his  war-horse  Bucepha- 
lus at  the  head  of  the  invincible  Macedonian  phalanx; 
but,  sir,  such  are  the  improvements  of  modern  times  that 
every  one  must  see  that  our  militia  general,  with  his  crop- 
eared  mare  with  bushy  tail  and  sickle  hams,  would  literal- 
ly frighten  off  a  battle-field  a  hundred  Alexanders.  But, 
sir,  to  the  history  of  the  parade-day.  The  general,  thus 
mounted  and  equipped,  is  in  the  field,  and  ready  for  ac- 
tion. On  the  eve  of  some  desperate  enterprise,  such  as 
giving  orders  to  shoulder  arms,  it  may  be,  there  occurs  a 
crisis,  one  of  the  accidents  of  war  which  no  sagacity  could 
foresee  or  prevent — a  cloud  rises  and  passes  over  the 
sun !  Here  an  occasion  occurs  for  the  display  of  that 
greatest  of  all  traits  in  the  character  of  a  commander, 
that  tact  which  enables  him  to  seize  upon  and  turn  to 
good  account  events  unlocked  for  as  they  arise.  Now 
for  the  caution  wherewith  the  Roman  Fabius  foiled  the 
skill  and  courage  of  Hannibal.  A  retreat  is  ordered,  and 
troops  and  general  in  a  twinkling  are  found  safely  biv- 
ouacked in  a  neighboring  grocery !  But  even  here  the 
general  still  has  room  for  the  exhibition  of  heroic  deeds. 
Hot  from  the  field,  and  chafed  with  the  untoward  events 
of  the  day,  your  general  unsheathes  his  trenchant  blade, 


206  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

eighteen  inches  in  length,  as  you  will  well  remember,  and 
with  an  energy  and  remorseless  fury  he  slices  the  water- 
melons that  lie  in  heaps  around  him,  and  shares  them 
with  his  surviving  friends  ! 

"  Others  of  the  sinews  of  war  are  not  wanting  here. 
Whisky,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  great  leveler  of  modern  times, 
is  here  also,  and  the  shells  of  the  water-melons  are  rilled 
to  the  brim.  Here  again,  Mr.  Speaker,  is  shown  how  the 
extremes  of  barbarism  and  civilization  meet.  As  the 
Scandinavian  heroes  of  old,  after  the  fatigues  of  war, 
drank  wine  from  the  skulls  of  their  slaughtered  enemies 
in  Odin's  Hall,  so  now  our  militia  general  and  his  forces, 
from  the  skulls  of  melons  thus  vanquished,  in  copious 
draughts  of  whisky  assuage  the  heroic  fire  of  their  souls 
after  the  bloody  scenes  of  a  parade-day. 

"  But,  alas  for  this  short-lived  race  of  ours !  all  things 
will  have  an  end,  and  so  even  is  it  with  the  glorious 
achievements  of  our  general.  Time  is  on  the  wing,  and 
will  not  stay  his  flight ;  the  sun,  as  if  frightened  at  the 
mighty  events  of  the  day,  rides  down  the  sky ;  and  at  the 
close  of  the  day,  when  'the  hamlet  is  still/  the  curtain  of 
night  drops  upon  the  scene ; 

"  'And  the  glory,  like  the  phenix  in  its  fires, 
Exhales  its  odors,  blazes,  and  expires.' " 

Our  men  of  genuine  humor  should,  like  Corwin,  more 
frequently  level  their  lances  at  the  extravagance  and 
vanity  which  disfigure  our  national  character !  Then, 
indeed,  would  our  humor  have  that  humanity  and  re- 
finement which  Sydney  Smith  gave  to  it  in  definition 
and  practice,  whose  office  he  likened  to  a  Lorraine  glass, 
which  throws  a  sunny  hue  over  the  landscape.  How  it 
expands  caution,  relaxes  dignity,  tempers  coldness,  teaches 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     2 07 

age  and  care  and  pain  to  smile,  extorting  reluctant  gleams 
of  pleasure  from  melancholy,  and  charming  even  the 
pangs  of  grief !  How  it  penetrates  through  the  coldness 
and  awkwardness  of  society,  gradually  bringing  men  near- 
er together,  and,  like  the  combined  force  of  wine  and  oil, 
giving  every  man  a  glad  heart  and  a  shining  countenance  ! 
If  more  of  this  flavor  of  the  mind  enlivened  our  pilgrim- 
age on  earth,  it  would  elevate  benevolence  and  inspire 
principle.  If  more  of  the  Hardin-Corwin  type  of  men 
were  in  our  public  assemblies,  there  would  be  less  of  the 
treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils  of  politics. 

PROCTOR  KNOTT,  BURLESQUE,  AND  DULUTH. 

Proctor  Knott  is  now  best  known  as  a  Congressional 
humorist.  But  his  humor,  like  all  genuine  virtues,  has 
little  or  no  malice  in  its  composition. 

When  people  first  come  to  Washington  they  are  disap- 
pointed— not  now  at  the  city  itself,  for  it  more  than  fills 
expectation,  but  at  the  public  men.  Sergeant  S.  Pren- 
tiss,  the  Maine-Mississippian  orator,  was  there  in  Februa- 
ry, 1833,  and  writes  to  his  sister  that  he  has  seen  Gener- 
al Jackson,  "who  is  no  more  fit  to  be  President  than  I 
am.  You  have  no  idea  how  destitute  of  talent  are  more 
than  half  of  the  members  of  Congress.  Nine  out  of  ten 
of  your  ordinary  acquaintance  are  fully  equal  to  them." 
This  is  the  first  impression.  Closer  acquaintance  reveals 
that  each  of  these  unpromising  members  has  some  pe- 
culiar quality  which  lifts  him  aside  from,  if  not  above,  his 
fellows  at  home.  They  are  "  singed  cats,"  many  of  them, 
who,  like  Proctor  Knott,  may  not  be  taken  for  much  at 
sight,  or  for  a  month  or  a  session  or  so,  and  then  their 
native  hue  and  quality  burst  out,  unexpectedly  and  grand- 
ly, like  certain  tropical  flowers,  with  a  report ! 


208  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

Few  suspected  Mr.  Knott  of  the  possession  of  such  an 
abundant  flow  of  the  facile  and  graceful  faculty  of  fun- 
making.  One  speech  about  paving  Pennsylvania  Avenue 
had  only  provoked  the  House  to  hear  more.  They  heard 
it  in  his  Duluth  speech. 

When  I  first  heard  the  English  Parliamentarians  speak, 
it  was  with  surprise.  No  one  except  Bright  and  Walpole 
seemed  to  be  fluent  after  the  American  method.  Their 
hesitation  and  mannerism  were  atrocious.  Imagine  Cic- 
ero addressing  the  Roman  Senate  :  "  Quousque — ah  ! — 
tandem  —  hem  / — abutere — haw  ! — Catilina — patientia — 
ahem  ! — ah  ! — he! — haw  ! — nostrah-h-h  ?"  In  Parliament 
the  orator  sits  on  a  rough  bench,  his  head  covered,  to 
pour  forth  this  outlandish  gibberish.  Literally,  he  "puts 
off  his  hat  to  put  his  case."  A  case  thus  put  is  the 
very  anticlimax  of  graceful  and  fervid  oratory.  It  is  the 
ideal  of  an  awkward  manner,  even  when  delivering  brill- 
iant sense.  Disraeli  has  it.  It  is  the  dandyism  of  daw- 
dleism.  It  is  the  reverse  of  the  copia  loquendi  of  Cicero, 
and  of  the  fluency  of  the  incomparable  Corwin  and  the 
unhesitating  Knott.  If  a  man  in  Congress  hesitates,  he 
is  lost.  Twenty  interruptions  give  him  pause.  In  Par- 
liament it  would  seem  that  he  is  lost  if  he  does  not  hesi- 
tate and  hem  and  haw.  But  it  was  not  the  easy  flow  of 
Mr.  Knott's  periods  that  gave  him  prompt  fame.  He 
struck  a  prevailing  sense  of  fun  connected  with  our  su- 
perlative language  and  exaggerated  speculation. 

The  man  who  touches  this  theme  in  fit  style,  whether 
it  be  Mark  Twain  and  his  scheming  lobby  with  "mill- 
ions in  it,"  or  Proctor  Knott  with  his  Duluth,  as  the  cen- 
tre of  the  visible  universe,  where  the  sky  comes  down  at 
precisely  the  same  distance  all  around  it,  or  as  one  vast 
corral  into  which  all  commerce  goes,  demonstrates  the 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     209 

typical  American  trait.  We  are  a  consequential  people. 
We  look  for  sequences.  We  claimed  of  England  two 
hundred  millions,  "consequential  damages."  We  did 
not  get  that  sum.  Sometimes  we  come  out  too  often 
without  regard  to  consequences.  No  matter  what  we 
consider,  whether  finance,  war,  or  agriculture,  the  prevail- 
ing humorous  tone  is  the  magnitudinous. 

Before,  however,  the  analysis  of  Mr.  Knott's  humor,  al- 
low me  to  present  that  of  another  Kentuckian,  to  show 
the  peculiar  style.  That  State  had  a  school  of  its  own. 
One  of  her  Senators,  Mr.  Thompson,  was  one  of  the  most 
entertaining  men  I  ever  heard  speak.  Like  Senator  Mor- 
ton, he  spoke  sitting.  His  speech  against  filibustering 
was  in  the  best  Kentucky  style.  He  described  the  ad- 
venturers to  Cuba  as  elegant  young  men,  who,  having 
nothing  to  live  upon,  do  nothing,  and  have  nothing  to 
do  any  thing  upon.  They  get  to  be  overseer  for  a  wid- 
ow, marry  her,  and  next  year  the  rest  of  the  family  are 
disinherited.  He  likened  the  South  to  children  spoil- 
ed by  sweetmeats,  and  eternally  whining  because  their 
stomach  is  not  as  big  as  their  eyes,  and  they  can  not 
swallow  every  thing  they  see  !  "  Whenever  I  see  a  man 
out  in  a  muster -field,  blustering  about  his  willingness 
to  shed  the  last  drop  of  his  blood,  I  would  rather  see 
some  one  willing  to  shed  the  first  drop."  Again  :  "W7hen 
the  Senator  from  Texas  got  on  his  legs,  he  was  like  one 
of  our  mustangs  on  a  stampede.  He  made  a  speech 
which  seemed  to  shake  the  North  Star  out  of  its  socket." 
He  had  an  opulence  of  anecdote,  but  he  used  it  with 
brevity.  He  likened  certain  grabs  to  the  highwayman 
in  "  Paul  Clifford."  When  this  hero  took  a  watch,  he 
admired  it  more  for  its  weight  than  its  workmanship. 
"Beauty  when  unadorned,"  was  his  remark,  as  he  re- 


210  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

ceived  a  gold  chain  from  a  lady.  "The  wants  of  others 
are  more  worthy  of  your  attention  than  family  preju- 
dices." He  could  not  for  the  life  of  him  rob  immorally. 
Likening  a  company  to  Terry's  arbitration,  "  me,  myself, 
and  my  brother  will  settle  it ;  and  they  fobbed  the  grab." 
And  yet  again  :  "  I  was  not  a  Jackson  man,"  he  once  ex- 
claimed ;  "  but  he  was  a  hero  and  a  horse  !  It  made  my 
heart  swell  to  hear  him  tell  Louis  Philippe  that  he  was 
no  gentleman  if  he  did  not  pay  those  two  and  a  quarter 
millions !"  This  is  the  grandiose  style  most  affected  in 
certain  localities.  It  is  a  part  of  our  magnificent  progress. 

A  French  writer  has  recently  expressed  that  there  was 
no  dubiety  over  the  story  he  heard  from  a  Congressman, 
about  an  Irishman  who  went  to  sleep  on  the  prairie,  near 
Chicago,  with  a  stone  for  a  pillow,  and  a  buffalo-skin  cov- 
ering, and  woke  up  to  find  himself  in  the  dark  cellar  of  a 
five-story  warehouse,  which  had  been  built  over  him  in 
the  night,  and  in  the  centre  of  a  thickly  peopled  quarter 
of  the  city ! 

We  should  not  be  too  critical  over  such  stories.  As 
well  quarrel  with  Mark  Twain's  naivete  over  the  hand- 
writing of  Columbus.  Yet  this  exaggeration  has  its  leg- 
islative expression.  Senator  Nye  discusses  the  merits 
of  torpedoes.  How  does  he  do  it  ?  He  tells  the  Senate 
that  Lieutenant  Gushing  blew  the  Albemarle  so  high  that 
gravitation  did  not  operate  on  it;  and  in  describing  the 
old  blunderbuss  and  other  ancient  and  effete  arms,  he 
said,  that,  in  those  olden  times,  if  a  man  was  killed,  it 
was  an  accident ! 

But  if  you  would  have  the  superlative  of  this  extrava- 
gant humor,  gaze  at  the  picture  which  Governor  Wise 
once  drew  of  Virginia  agriculture:  "The  landlord  skins 
the  tenant,  the  tenant  the  land,  until  all  are  poor  togeth- 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS' — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     211 

er.  The  ledge -patches  outshine  the  sun.  Inattention 
has  seared  the  bosom  of  Mother  Earth.  Instead  of  '  cat- 
tle on  a  thousand  hills,'  they  chase  the  stump-tailed  steer 
through  the  ledge-patches  to  procure  a  tough  beefsteak  !" 
He  had  met  a  Virginian  on  horseback,  on  a  bag  of  hay 
for  a  saddle,  without  stirrups,  and  with  the  leading-line 
for  a  bridle,  and  he  had  said  to  him,  "Whose  house  is 
that,  sir?"  "It  is  mine."  They  came  to  another  house. 
"And  that?"  "Mine  too,  stranger."  To  a  third  house. 
"And  whose  house  is  that  ?"  "  Mine  too  ;  but  don't  sup- 
pose, stranger,  I'm  so  darned  poor  as  to  own  all  the  land 
about  here !" 

Already  I  have  endeavored  to  analyze  this  indigenous 
taste  for  intensity  of  expression  and  magnificence  of  idea. 
It  is  not  new  with  us.  It  is  as  old  as  the  Revolution. 
Ethan  Allen's  "  Great  Jehovah  and  the  Continental  Con- 
gress "  is  in  the  same  swelling  vein.  When  the  English 
commissioners  came  here  to  treat  for  peace,  in  1778,  it 
seems  that  the  very  meteorological  phenomena  and  phys- 
ical scenery  stunned  the  curled  darling  of  the  court,  Lord 
Carlisle,  one  of  the  commissioners.  He  humorously  at- 
tributes the  great  English  disasters  to  the  comprehensive 
magnitude  of  the  country.  Excusing  his  failure  to  recon- 
cile the  colonies,  he  writes  to  his  friend,  the  witty  George 
Selwyn  :  "  I  inclose  you  our  manifesto,  which  you  will  nev- 
er read.  'Tis  a  sort  of  dying  speech  of  the  commission, 

an  effort  from  which  I  expect  little  success Every 

thing  is  upon  a  great  scale  upon  this  continent.  The 
rivers  are  immense,  the  climate  violent  in  heat  and  cold, 
the  prospects  magnificent,  the  thunder  and  lightning  tre- 
mendous. The  disorders  incident  to  the  country  make 
every  constitution  tremble.  Our  own  blunders  here,  our 
misconduct,  our  losses,  our  disgraces,  our  ruin,  are  on  a 


212  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

great  scale."  He  caught  the  salient  feature  of  our  scen- 
ery and  society.  We  have  only  aggrandized  it  since. 

A  burst  of  exaggeration  in  an  American  assembly  as 
surely  awakens  ludicrous  interest  as  an  allusion  to  a 
horse-race  in  the  English  Parliament.  Punch,  in  its  "Es- 
sence of  Parliament,"  can  well  say  of  Mr.  Hubbard,  M.P., 
"On  any  hobby,  he  is  a  heavy  goer."  The  model  aver- 
age English  statesman  is  well  described  as 

"  The  lounging  member  seldom  in  his  place, 
And  then  with  thoughts  remote  upon  a  race." 

Hence,  an  allusion  to  a  ministry  as  splintered,  spavined, 
and  broken-winded  is  always  received  with  laughter  by  a 
body  which  adjourns  for  the  Derby,  and  which  represents 
a  people  who  on  that  day  take  the  liberty  to  abuse  all  on 
the  road — nob  and  snob,  tramp  and  shop -man,  queen 
and  courtesan.  We  used  to  have  Congressmen  fond  of 
the  turf — Southern  men.  Their  allusions  smacked  of  the 
English.  Once,  in  comparing  Clay  with  Polk,  an  eloquent 
Tennesseean  remarked,  that  "You  have  brought  out, 
for  a  four-mile  heat,  a  spavined,  ring-boned,  string-halt, 
broken-winded,  bobtailed  pony  to  run  against '  Eclipse  !'  " 
But  in  an  American  Congress  nothing  so  suits  the  pre- 
vailing temper  and  tone  as  the  grotesque  and  ample  hy- 
perbole, the  accumulated  largeness  of  language  bestowed 
on  the  description  of  a  grand  speculation,  with  its  gor- 
geous incidents  and  its  magnificent  accidents. 

When  this  Kentuckian,  Knott,  first  talked  in  Congress, 
he  struck  this  Big  Bonanza  vein.  How  the  House  en- 
joyed it !  I  remember  well  his  first  pathetic  description 
of  the  depth  of  that  love  for  the  people  entertained  by 
members  ;  how  it  surpassed  that  of  the  young  mother  for 
her  first-born — a  depth  of  sentiment  which  bankrupts  all 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     213 

the  resources  of  pathetic  eloquence  and  stirring  poetry. 
How  affluently  he  smoothed  the  raven-down  of  darkness 
till  it  smiled  as  he  pictured  the  negroes  who  hung  about 
the  Capitol  and  in  the  galleries,  perched  like  turkey-buz- 
zards in  a  deadening,  waiting  for  the  rich  repast  that  Con- 
gress was  expected  to  prepare  for  their  rapacious  beaks ! 
Then  how  neatly  he  changed  the  scene  to  Judiciary 
Square,  full  of  the  same  class,  reclining  in  the  shade,  like 
black  snakes  in  a  brier-patch !  In  this  strain  of  exag- 
geration he  took  up  the  Pennsylvania  Avenue  Pavement 
Bill.  Did  he  argue  the  points  logically?  Of  course. 
But  who  remembers  the  logic  of  arithmetic  when  clown 
the  deep  iambic  lines  the  cothurn  treads  majestic,  full  of 
mock  and  tumid  tropes  ?  Who  cares  for  the  syllogism  or 
the  ignoratio  elenchi  when  a  chorus  of  Bacchantes  sing 
the  dithyramb  of  wild  and  intoxicating  frolicsomeness  ? 
There  is  a  logic  of  fun  which  drowns,  overtops  all ;  and 
Proctor  Knott  floated  on  this  rolling  sea  as  easily  as  Cap- 
tain Boynton  in  the  Channel,  or,  rather,  like  a  behemoth 
of  the  deep. 

After  making  a  picture  of  the  luxury  of  the  capital,  its 
fragrant  squares,  its  polished  walks,  its  promenades  and 
drives,  its  sinuous  foot-paths,  laid  with  an  elastic  concrete 
of  white  sea-sand,  bordered  with  shrubbery  that  would 
have  lent  new  charms  to  Calypso's  favorite  bower,  and 
winding  away  in  all  the  intricate  mazes  of  the  Cretan  lab- 
yrinth— its  satin-slippered  beauties,  reclining  in  such  ec- 
static languor  upon  the  downy  cushions  of  their  splendid 
carriages  that  even  the  perfumed  zephyr,  as  he  steals  from 
beds  of  rare  exotics,  shall  not  kiss  their  velvet  cheeks  too 
rudely,  nor  the  dancing  sunbeams  taste  the  delicious  fra- 
grance that  exhales  from  their  honeyed  lips — the  orator, 
like  the  gladiator  of  Byron,  sees  his  young  barbarians  of 


214  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

Kentucky  at  play  on  the  blue  grass ;  and  he  turns  lov- 
ingly to  the  toil-browned,  barefooted  daughter  of  a  taxed 
Kentucky  constituent,  in  her  homespun  gown,  innocent 
of  crinoline  or  train.  Is  this  ample  enough  ?  Like  his 
predecessor,  he,  too,  is  fond  of  Homer ;  and  the  touching 
picture  he  draws  of  the  sacrifices  of  the  office-holder  is 
in  the  best  vein  of  Ben  Hardin.  There  was  no  being 
on  earth  for  whose  comfort  he  entertained  so  profound  a 
solicitude  as  for  that  of  your  public  functionary,  no  one 
whose  smallest  want  so  stirred  his  sympathetic  soul  to  its 
serenest  depths  : 

"  When  I  see  him  bidding  adieu  to  the  sweets  of  pri- 
vate life,  for  which  he  is  so  eminently  fitted  by  nature, 
to  immolate  himself  on  the  altar  of  his  country,  Homer's 
touching  picture  of  the  last  scene  between  the  noble 
Hector  and  his  weeping  family  rises  before  my  imagina- 
tion ;  when  I  see  him  seated  sorrowfully  at  a  miserable 
repast  of  sea-terrapin  and  Champagne,  my  very  bowels 
yearn  for  him  ;  and  when  I  see  him  performing,  perhaps, 
the  only  duty  for  which  he  is  fully  competent,  signing  the 
receipt  for  his  monthly  pay,  I  am  so  overwhelmed  for  his 
miserable  condition  that  I  wish  I  were  in  his  place." 

In  a  similar  strain  of  elaborate  satire,  he  desired  new 
pavements  over  which  the  carriages  of  our  Government 
officials,  with  their  coats  of  arms  and  livened  outriders, 
might  glide  as  smoothly  and  noiselessly  as  the  aerial  car 
of  the  fairy  queen  through  the  rose-tinted  clouds  of  the 
upper  ether.  Winding  up  his  speech  with  pregnant  sta- 
tistics and  prophetic  sense,  he  saw  what  many  did  not 
see  then  (1870),  what  local  and  Federal  extravagance 
was  bringing  upon  the  capital. 

In  the  peroration  of  this  his  first  speech,  which  brought 
the  Kentucky  orator  to  the  front,  he  was  puzzled  to  tell 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     215 

what  power  short  of  an  omniscient  providence  could  fore- 
tell what  the  Government  would  eventually  have  to  pay 
for  the  improvement  of  this  avenue.  The  astronomer 
predicts  a  total  eclipse  of  the  sun  a  hundred  years"  in  the 
future,  and  names  the  exact  time  and  place  upon  the 
earth  at  which  the  sublime  phenomenon  will  first  be  seen  ; 
and,  whether  it  be  upon  the  costly  icebergs  of  Alaska  or 
the  blood-stained  soil  of  suffering  Cuba,  punctual  to  the 
second  the  gigantic  shadow  falls  upon  the  precise  spot  he 
indicates.  Thus  summoning  the  infinitudes  and  splen- 
dors of  the  starry  hosts  by  a  sublime  anticlimax,  all  radi- 
ant with  humor,  he  can  not  foretell  what  any  public  im- 
provement about  Washington  City  will  cost,  or  when  it 
will  be  finished.  It  defies  the  highest  mathematics  and 
the  utmost  range  of  conjecture. 

Until  the  Duluth  speech  was  made,  the  House  had  lit- 
tle thought  of  the  rich  plenitude  of  humor  in  store  for 
them.  The  surprise  was  enhanced  because  Mr.  Knott 
spoke  rarely.  He  was  not  an  active,  rather  a  lazy,  mem- 
ber— ostensibly  so. 

"He  used  to  slug  or  sleep,  in  slothful  shade." 

They  took  the  alligator  for  a  log,  till  they  sat  on  him. 
Grudgingly  was  the  floor  yielded  to  him  on  the  Duluth 
debate.  He  was  offered  only  ten  minutes  j  whereupon 
he  remarked  that  his  facilities  for  getting  time  were 
so  poor  that,  if  he  were  standing  on  the  brink  of  per- 
dition, and  the  sands  were  crumbling  under  his  feet, 
he  could  not  in  that  body  get  time  enough  to  say  the 
Lord's  Prayer.  The  St.  Croix  and  Bayfield.Road  Bill 
asked  for  some  of  the  public  domain.  Mr.  Knott  dis- 
avowed any  more  interest  in  the  bill  than  in  an  orange- 
grove  on  the  bleakest  summit  of  Greenland's  icy  mount- 


2l6  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

ains.  It  was  thus  that  he  introduced  the  splendid 
project:  "Years  ago,  when  I  first  heard  that  there  was 
somewhere  in  the  vast  terra  incognita,  somewhere  in  the 
bleak  regions  of  the  great  North-west,  a  stream  of 
water  known  to  the  nomadic  inhabitants  of  the  neigh- 
borhood as  the  river  St.  Croix,  I  became  satisfied  that 
the  construction  of  a  railroad  from  that  raging  torrent 
to  some  point  in  the  civilized  world  was  essential  to 
the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  the  American  people,  if 
not  absolutely  indispensable  to  the  perpetuity  of  repub- 
lican institutions  on  this  continent.  [Great  laughter.]  I 
felt  instinctively  that  the  boundless  resources  of  that 
prolific  region  of  sand  and  pine-shrubbery  would  never 
be  fully  developed  without  a  railroad  constructed  and 
equipped  at  the  expense  of  the  Government,  and  perhaps 
not  then.  [Laughter.]  I  had  an  abiding  presentiment 
that,  some  day  or  other,  the  people  of  this  whole  country, 
irrespective  of  party  affiliations,  regardless  of  sectional 
prejudices,  and  'without  distinction  of  race,  color,  or  pre- 
vious condition  of  servitude/  would  rise  in  their  majesty 
and  demand  an  outlet  for  the  enormous  agricultural  pro- 
ductions of  those  vast  and  fertile  pine-barrens,  drained  in 
the  rainy  season  by  the  surging  waters  of  the  turbid  St. 
Croix."  [Great  laughter.] 

He  put  this  problem  to  the  House  as  to  the  value  of 
the  lands  :  If  the  timbered  lands  are  the  most  valuable, 
and  valueless  without  the  timber,  what  is  the  remainder 
of  the  land  worth,  which  has  no  timber  on  it  at  all  ?  How 
he  pictured  this  land  satirically  as  the  Goshen  of  Ameri- 
ca and  an  inexhaustible  mine  of  agricultural  wealth,  and 
then  with  truthful  exaggeration  as  a  region  which  in  ten 
years  would  by  its  vegetation  fatten  a  grasshopper !  how 
he  brooded  over  the  dangers  to  our  Government  if  it  neg- 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     217 

lected  or  abandoned  such  a  region  !  how  he  amplified 
these  dangers  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  se- 
cession, reconstruction,  and  the  new  amendments,  and, 
after  all,  the  worst  of  all  dangers — the  peril  of  our  navy 
rotting  in  their  docks  for  want  of  railroad  communication 
with  the  prolific  pine-thickets  of  the  St.  Croix  !  Then  he 
was  concerned  because  we  had  lost  Alta  Vela,  a  guano 
isle ;  and  then  as  to  the  proper  point  of  connection  with 
the  teeming  pine-barrens,  until,  amidst  shouts  of  laughter, 
he  mentioned  "  Duluth !"  It  has  since  been  known  as 
the  Zenith  City  of  the  Unsalted  Seas  !  Duluth !  How 
he  rolls  it  as  a  sweet  morsel  under  and  over  his  tongue ! 
"  Duluth !  The  word  fell  upon  my  ear  with  peculiar 
and  indescribable  charm,  like  the  gentle  murmur  of  a 
low  fountain  stealing  forth  in  the  midst  of  roses,  or  the 
soft,  sweet  accents  of  an  angel's  whisper  in  the  bright, 
joyous  dream  of  sleeping  innocence.  Duluth !  'Twas 
the  name  for  which  my  soul  had  panted  for  years,  as  the 
hart  panteth  for  the  water-brooks.  [Renewed  laughter.] 
But  where  was  Duluth  ?  Never  in  all  my  limited  reading 
had  my  vision  been  gladdened  by  seeing  the  celestial 
word  in  print.  [Laughter.]  And  I  felt  a  profounder  hu- 
miliation in  my  ignorance  that  its  dulcet  syllables  had 
never  before  ravished  my  delighted  ear.  [Roars  of  laugh- 
ter.] I  was  certain  the  draughtsman  of  this  bill  had  nev- 
er heard  of  it,  or  it  would  have  been  designated  as  one 
of  the  termini  of  this  road.  I  asked  my  friends  about  it, 
but  they  knew  nothing  of  it.  I  rushed  to  the  library  and 
examined  all  the  maps  I  could  find.  [Laughter.]  I  dis- 
covered in  one  of  them  a  delicate,  hair-like  line,  diverging 
from  the  Mississippi  near  a  place  marked  Prescott,  which 
I  supposed  was  intended  to  represent  the  river  St.  Croix, 
but  I  could  nowhere  find  Duluth. 


2l8  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

"  Nevertheless,  I  was  confident  it  existed  somewhere, 
and  that  its  discovery  would  constitute  the  crowning 
glory  of  the  present  century,  if  not  of  all  modern  times. 
[Laughter.]  I  knew  it  was  bound  to  exist,  in  the  very 
nature  of  things ;  that  the  symmetry  and  perfection  of 
our  planetary  system  would  be  incomplete  without  it  [re- 
newed laughter] ;  that  the  elements  of  material  nature 
would  long  since  have  resolved  themselves  back  into 
original  chaos  if  there  had  been  such  a  hiatus  in  creation 
as  would  have  resulted  from  leaving  out  Duluth.  [Roars 
of  laughter.]  In  fact,  sir,  I  was  overwhelmed  with  the 
conviction  that  Duluth  not  only  existed  somewhere,  but 
that,  wherever  it  was,  it  was  a  great  and  glorious  place. 
I  was  convinced  that  the  greatest  calamity  that  ever  be- 
fell the  benighted  nations  of  the  ancient  world  was  in 
their  having  passed  away  without  a  knowledge  of  the  act- 
ual existence  of  Duluth  •  that  their  fabled  Atlantis,  never 
seen  save  by  the  hallowed  vision  of  inspired  poesy,  was, 
in  fact,  but  another  name  for  Duluth ;  that  the  golden 
orchard  of  the  Hesperides  was  but  a  poetical  synonym 
for  the  beer-gardens  in  the  vicinity  of  Duluth.  [Great 
laughter.]  I  was  certain  that  Herodotus  had  died  a  mis- 
erable death  because  in  all  his  travels  and  with  all  his 
geographical  research  he  had  never  heard  of  Duluth. 
[Laughter.]  I  knew  that  if  the  immortal  spirit  of  Homer 
could  look  down  from  another  heaven  than  that  created 
by  his  own  celestial  genius  upon  the  long  lines  of  pil- 
grims from  every  nation  of  the  earth  to  the  gushing  fount- 
ain of  poesy  opened  by  the  touch  of  his  magic  wand ;  if 
he  could  be  permitted  to  behold  the  vast  assemblage  of 
grand  and  glorious  productions  of  the  lyric  art  called 
into  being  by  his  own  inspired  strains,  he  would  weep 
tears  of  bitter  anguish  that,  instead  of  lavishing  all  the 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     219 

stores  of  his  mighty  genius  upon  the  fall  of  Ilion,  it  had 
not  been  his  more  blessed  lot  to  crystallize  in  deathless 
song  the  rising  glories  of  Duluth.  [Great  and  continued 
laughter.]  Yet,  sir,  had  it  not  been  for  this  map,  kindly 
furnished  me  by  the  Legislature  of  Minnesota,  I  might 
have  gone  down  to  my  obscure  and  humble  grave  in  an 
agony  of  despair  because  I  could  nowhere  find  Duluth. 
[Renewed  laughter.]  Had  sucii  been  my  melancholy 
fate,  I  have  no  doubt  that  with  the  last  feeble  pulsation 
of  my  breaking  heart,  with  the  last  faint  exhalation  of  my 
fleeting  breath,  I  should  have  whispered,  *  Where  is  Du- 
luth ?'  [Roars  of  laughter.] 

"But,  thanks  to  the  beneficence  of  that  band  of  minis- 
tering angels  who  have  their  bright  abodes  in  the  far-off 
capital  of  Minnesota,  just  as  the  agony  of  my  anxiety  was 
about  to  culminate  in  the  frenzy  of  despair,  this  blessed 
map  was  placed  in  my  hands ;  and  as  I  unfolded  it  a  re- 
splendent scene  of  ineffable  glory  opened  before  me,  such 
as  I  imagine  burst  upon  the  enraptured  vision  of  the  wan- 
dering peri  through  the  opening  gates  of  paradise.  [Re- 
newed laughter.]  There,  there  for  the  first  time,  my  en- 
chanted eye  rested  upon  the  ravishing  word '  Duluth.' 

"  If  gentlemen  will  examine  it,  they  will  find  Duluth 
not  only  in  the  centre  of  the  map,  but  represented  in  the 
centre  of  a  series  of  concentric  circles  one  hundred  miles 
apart,  and  some  of  them  as  much  as  four  thousand  miles 
in  diameter,  embracing  alike  in  their  tremendous  sweep 
the  fragrant  savannas  of  the  sunlit  South  and  the  eter- 
nal solitudes  of  snow  that  mantle  the  ice-bound  North. 
[Laughter.]  How  these  circles  were  produced  is  per- 
haps one  of  those  primordial  mysteries  that  the  most 
skillful  paleologist  will  never  be  able  to  explain.  [Re- 
newed laughter.]  But  the  fact  is,  sir,  Duluth  is  pre-emi- 


22O  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

nently  a  central  place,  for  I  am  told  by  gentlemen  who 
have  been  so  reckless  of  their  own  personal  safety  as  to 
venture  away  into  those  awful  regions  where  Duluth  is 
supposed  to  be,  that  it  is  so  exactly  in  the  centre  of  the 
visible  universe  that  the  sky  comes  down  at  precisely  the 
same  distance  all  around  it."  [Roars  of  laughter.] 

After  thus  locating  his  paradise,  he  ascertains  its  neigh- 
borhood advantages  —  buffaloes,  Piegans,  and  other  sav- 
ages. He  describes  the  convenience  by  which  the  red 
men  could  drive  the  buffalo  into  Duluth.  "  I  think  I  see 
them  now,"  exclaimed  the  inspired  humorist — "a  vast 
herd,  with  heads  down,  eyes  glaring,  nostrils  dilated, 
tongues  out,  and  tails  curled  over  their  backs,  tearing 
along  toward  Duluth,  with  a  thousand  Piegans  on  their 
grass-bellied  ponies  yelling  at  their  heels!  On  they 
come !  And  as  they  sweep  past  the  Creeks,  they  too 
join  in  the  chase,  and  away  they  all  go,  yelling,  bellow- 
ing, ripping  and  tearing  along,  amidst  clouds  of  dust,  un- 
til the  last  buffalo  is  safely  penned  in  the  stock-yards  of 
Duluth !" 

Was  this  burlesque  relished  by  honest  and  fun  loving 
people  ?  Yes ;  thousands  have  sent  and  are  yet  sending 
for  the  document.  Why  ?  Simply  because  the  orator 
played  with  imagery,  as  a  cunning  harper  with  the  strings 
of  his  harp  ?  No.  Because  this  speech  and  its  humor 
had  a  moral  which  he  deftly  turned  against  the  subsidy, 
or,  as  he  expressed  it  in  his  peroration  : 

"  My  relation  is  simply  that  of  trustee  to  an  express 
trust.  And  shall  I  ever  betray  that  trust  ?  Never,  sir ! 
Rather  perish  Duluth !  Perish  the  paragon  of  cities ! 
Rather  let  the  freezing  cyclones  of  the  bleak  North-west 
bury  it  forever  beneath  the  eddying  sands  of  the  raging 
St.  Croix  !" 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — HARDIN,  CORWIN,  KNOTT.     221 

Where  did  this  Kentucky  genius  obtain  his  rich  re- 
sources, of  illustration?  First  from  nature,  with  its  pine 
barrens,  deadenings,  and  black  snakes  ;  next  from  patient 
culture,  with  his  Homeric  and  other  epical  allusions  ;  and 
next  from  mixing  in  the  heat  and  dust  of  our  extravagant 
active  life,  and  studying  the  grand  volume  of  human  na- 
ture. A  close  student  of  men  and  books,  once  attorney- 
general  of  Missouri,  familiar  with  frontier  and  prairie  life, 
he  had  the  rare  perception  to  observe  the  queerness  and 
oddity  of  things,  and  the  rarer  gift  to  so  mix  his  colors 
and  limn  his  figures  that  all  should  recognize  beneath  the 
heightened  colors  the  graphic  genuineness  and  design  of 
his  art.  But  the  special  humor  of  this  Duluth  speech  lies 
in  its  magnifying,  with  a  roaring  rush  of  absurdity,  the  ex- 
aggerations of  a  Western  Eden,  in  which  utter  nakedness 
and  fragrant  luxuriance  alternate,  and  between  whose 
aisles  of  greenery  the  sly  devil  of  selfishness  sat  squat  at 
the  ear  of  Congress,  tempting  it  to  taste  the  forbidden 
fruit  of  subsidy.  It  is  this  string  of  spoken  pearls,  this 
effluence  of  diamond  dew,  this  beguiling  linked  humor 
long  drawn  out,  that  holds  the  ear;  but  there  is  more 
meant  than  meets  the  sense.  Like  the  allegory  or  the 
parable,  there  is  moral  hidden  beneath  this  elaborate  im- 
agery. It  is  this  moral  which  exalts  the  American  mind 
to  the  sublimity  of  its  own  peculiar  fun,  and  relieves  the 
leviathanic  lawlessness  of  exaggeration  of  its  strain  upon 
the  faculties.  No  speech  that  I  can  recall  produced  at 
once  so  signal  an  effect. 

I  do  not  except  General  Butler  when  he  addressed  the 
House  on  the  moiety  question.  He  had  an  audience  pre- 
pared to  applaud.  He  had  the  accessories,  the  mise  en 
scene,  together  with  abundant  gas-lights  and  personal 
spleen,  to  set  off  the  whole  for  a  grand  effect.  He  sue- 


222  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

ceeded,  for  no  one  could  uptrip  him  or  knock  him  down. 
Like  the  Dutch  toy,  he  is  ever  up,  rubicund  and  triumph- 
ant. When  he  drew  out  of  the  ship-hold  those  leaden 
statues  representing  the  Goddess  of  Liberty  and  the  Con- 
script Fathers,  and  described  them  as  devices  to  avoid 
the  customs  duty,  the  shouts  of  laughter  were  loud  and 
uproarious.  Without  detraction  from  this  performance, 
I  fail  to  find  in  it,  or  in  any  reported  speech  of  General 
Butler,  notwithstanding  the  skillful  arrangement  and  stat- 
uesque poses  by  which  he  graced  the  fervor  of  that  rheto- 
ric hour,  with  a  Mephistophelean-Brobdingnagian  energy 
of  fun,  any  comparison  with  this  Duluth  speech  of  Knott. 
These  efforts  of  Hardin,  Corwin,  Knott,  and  Butler  are 
referred  to,  for  the  sake  of  showing  one  class  of  humor 
which  is  not  strictly  that  of  the  House.  It  proceeds  from 
the  peculiar  manner  of  the  man.  It  is  elaborate  and  de- 
scriptive narrative,  depending  for  its  success  on  its  splen- 
did burlesque  of  expression  and  thought.  It  is  not  pe- 
culiar to  the  Legislature.  It  would  be  felicitous  in  any 
forum. 


THE   HUMORS   OF   LEGISLATIVE   CHITCHAT.  223 


XIII. 

THE  HUMORS  OF  LEGISLATIVE  CHITCHAT. 

"  Let  man  send  a  loud  ha  !  ha  !  through  the  universe,  and  be  rev- 
erently grateful  for  the  privilege."— DOUGLAS  JERROLD. 

THE  previous  analysis  of  our  reasons  for  laughing  with 
and  at  the  deliberative  mind,  collectively  and  individual- 
ly, has  been  directed  to  its  humors.  Their  utility  in  de- 
bate has  been  defended.  The  attempt  has  been  made  to 
remove  from  them  the  reproach  of  inconsequential  levi- 
ty, while  from  different  epochs  of  legislative  history,  and 
from  other  conspicuous  sources,  this  element  of  parlia- 
mentary rhetoric  has  been  illustrated. 

It  is  now  proposed  to  determine  in  detail  the  occasion 
and  mode  of  using  the  various  kinds  of  parliamentary 
weapons  which  are  tempered  by  humor. 

The  liberty  which  allows  so  many  levities  is,  as  Mr. 
Hallam  has  said,  "the  slow  fruit  of  ages."  This  indul- 
gence is  in  proportion  to  the  lusciousness  of  the  fruitage. 
Just  before  and  during  our  civil  war,  when  men  were  al- 
most on  their  knees  in  prayerful  perplexity  and  trouble, 
as  well  as  on  their  muscle  and  skill  in  great  conflicts — 
the  humor  was  not  pleasant.  In  vital  conflicts  fun  does 
not  flow  so  readily.  Shadow  and  sorrow  do  not  make 
mirth.  Thaddeus  Stevens  was,  perhaps,  an  exception, 
but  his  flavor  was  not  always  saccharine.  It  grew  out  of 
the  war.  It  was  acidulous  and  sharp.  Few  "  summer- 
sweets  "  were  found  in  his  orchard.  If  they  were  there, 
there  were  plenty  of  stones  and  clubs  beneath  the  trees. 


224  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

If  I  should  generally  characterize  the  humor  of  Con- 
gress in  the  twenty  years  of  my  knowledge  of  it,  it  should 
be  said  that  the  Forty-first  and  Forty-second  Congresses 
had  the  rarer  felicities.  Do  you  ask  why  ?  Because  the 
war  was  over,  and  reconstruction  had  begun  to  show  it- 
self in  better  temper.  Again,  do  you  ask,  "Who  should 
be  selected  from  this  period  as  the  happy  members  ?" 
Using  my  tests,  first,  the  lapse  of  time,  and,  next,  the  trans- 
latability  of  the  merry  words,  I  should  say  that  Edmunds, 
of  Vermont,  is  the  capital  wit ;  but  Thurman  met  him 
ever  with  exquisite  cunning  offence.  Then  follows  a  con- 
stellation, comprising  Tipton,  Nye,  Howe,  Conkling,  Cas- 
serly,  and  others  in  the  Senate ;  and  Schenck,  Butler, 
Stevens,  Dawes,  Garfield,  Ross,  Proctor  Knott,  Johnson, 
of  California,  and  a  score  of  other  members  of  the  House, 
who  answered  well  the  call  of  genial  debate. 

But  do  not  ask  me,  with  my  present  sense  of  this  al- 
most divine  gift,  to  elevate  another  class.  There  were 
some  who  used  the  emptiest  and  stalest  platitudes  for  hu- 
mor. Their  assumed  fun  is  simply  excruciating.  To  have 
sweat  great  beads  under  their  tame  and  stale  repetitions 
has  been  my  punishment.  The  very  muck  into  which 
their  seed  is  dropped,  receptive  and  rich  as  it  may  be, 
failed  to  give  the  true  aroma  to  their  scrubby  shrubbery. 
There  is  no  genialrty  in  their  rough  and  splenetic  oratory. 
It  is  not  for  me  to  "  call  gentlemen  by  name  "  in  this 
analysis,  though  vitriol-throwers  without  wit  should  be  pil- 
loried for  the  good  of  society.  But  even  the  small  debate 
and  smaller  humor  have  their  uses.  The  Senate  and 
House  are  better  fitted  by  them  for  duty.  Unlike  the 
law,  the  law-maker  does  care  for  "  little  things." 

The  same  law  which  forms  the  pearl  rules  the  witty 
expression.  Naturalists  ascribe  the  origin  of  the  pearl 


THE   HUMORS    OF    LEGISLATIVE    CHITCHAT.  225 

to  an  irritation  produced  by  the  intrusion  of  a  grain  of 
sand  or  grit  into  the  shell  of  the  mollusk.  This  by  a  pe- 
culiar process  is  covered  over  with  a  calcareous  secretion 
deposited  in  layers,  and,  lo !  the  pure  and  perfect  pearl. 
It  is  this  same  audacious  and  gritty  though  small  in- 
truder which  irritates  till  its  priceless  and  creamy  beauty 
is  radiant  with  the  rare  iris  of  humor.  Although  humor, 
like  the  pearl,  may  only  seem  fit  to  be  strung  as  an  orna- 
ment to  tickle  vain  minds  "to  mirth  effuse/7  yet  its  utility 
is  no  less  evident. 

Quite  a  portion  of  the  pearly  chitchat,  which  gives  zest 
and  life  to  the  daily  routine  of  Congressional  work  and 
worry,  laminated,  little  joke  on  joke,  as  pearls  are  formed, 
is  that  which  concerns  the  personal  foibles,  the  length  of 
service,  the  manners,  or  the  committee-work  of  members. 
Sometimes  it  is  the  bar-room  and  cross-roads  talk,  the 
badinage  of  the  stump,  the  ignorant  and  ungrammatical 
fanfaronade,  and  the  stupid  brag  of  the  Bobadils.  Some- 
times vulgarity  competes  with  courtesy,  and  wins  an  ap- 
parent advantage  until  tested  by  taste  and  time.  Yet 
such  simple,  and  sometimes  noisy,  chitchat  is  not  without 
its  utility.  It  is  far  better  than  the  forcible-feeble  denun- 
ciations, spiteful  wrangles,  and  pandemoniac — not  to  use 
O'ConnelFs  phrase — "  beastly  howlings  " — which  fill  the 
earlier  Globes.  These  are  associated  with  cries  of  "  Or- 
der !"  "order!"  They  brought  forth  at  times  the  em- 
blematic mace  itself  from  its  marble  pediment.  Often 
its  silver  eagle  flew  into  the  arena,  restrained  by  the  stal- 
wart grasp  of  the  sergeant-at-arms.  If  an  American  as- 
semblage, when  in  a  mobocratic  mood,  is  not  represented 
on  such  occasions  by  its  Congressman,  then  has  there 
been  much  slander  on  both.  Our  British  Parliamentari- 
ans, as  I  have  shown,  are  not  mere  babes  and  sucklings 


226  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

when  the  legislative  mood  wills  that  the  aurochs  roar  like 
all  Bashan  ;  but  in  this,  have  we  degenerated  in  lung  or 
liberty?  An  English  writer  has  said  that  the  transatlan- 
tic infant  has  a  peculiar  mode  of  crying  in  a  series  of 
sharp,  spasmodic  yelps,  very  different  from  the  sostenu- 
-4o  howl  of  the  British  bantling,  and  with  intonation  as 
though  it  were  prematurely  striving  to  recite  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence  with  its  mouth  full  of  pea-nuts 
and  pop-corn. 

Conceding  this  to  be  a  gross  libel  on  the  American  in- 
fant, yet  it  has  much  discriminating  truth  when  applied 
to  the  occasions  referred  to  and  to  the  full-grown  Amer- 
ican representative.  "As  grows  the  people,  so  the  swaths 
expand." 

On  such  occasions  the  startled  reporters  give  signs  of 
unusual  interest  as  they  nib  their  pens,  and  lean  from  the 
gallery,  aroused  for  a  fresh  sensation.  Often  the  faces 
of  Washington  and  Lafayette,  which  flank  the  Speaker's 
desk,  seem  to  scowl  madly  over  the  painful  and  bellicose 
scene.  Is  there  no  relief?  Oh  yes.  Some  sudden  flash 
of  fun  is  shot  radiantly  into  the  agitated  assembly,  and 
the  roar  dies  into  a  chuckle  of  moderation.  Hence  these 
little  humors  rise  into  something  of  dignified  solemni- 
ty, checking  personal  vituperation  and  fistic  encounter. 
Once  in  a  fierce  and  clamorous  House,  while  Mr.  Speak- 
er Pennington  was  pitched  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  a  mem- 
ber of  a  military  mind,  just  from  the  restaurant,  took  up 
the  cry  of  "  Order !"  from  the  Speaker  and  cried  out, 
"Arms !"  and  the  arms  dropped,  amidst  much  merriment, 
and  the  order  was  enforced. 

Let  me,  then,  refer  to  some  of  the  occasions  and  illus- 
trations of  this  by -play  of  humor.  The  gentler  sex  is 
a  frequent  theme.  The  laughs,  however,  are  too  often 


THE    HUMORS    OF    LEGISLATIVE    CHITCHAT.  227 

equivocal  and  reprehensible.  Widows'  pensions,  the  mar- 
riage and  other  relations,  are  subject  to  the  usual  bandy 
of  unexpressed  but  suggested  ribaldry.  "My  object  was 
to  reach  the  widows  on  the  private  calendar,"  says  one. 
Another  asks,  "Does  this  army  bill  embrace  washer-women 
as  well  as  teamsters  ?"  A  bill  is  called  up  for  the  relief 
of  certain  widows.  It  is  read  by  its  title,  "An  Act  for 
the  relief  of  William  A.  Christian."  Some  one  inquires, 
"  What  sort  of  a  widow  is  that  ?"  And  amidst  good  na- 
ture the  bill  passes.  The  stage  is  not  coarser  than  Con- 
gress in  this  respect,  and  a  gallery  of  ladies  makes  no 
difference.  A  member  says,  "  It  is  asserted  that  a  good 
many  of  these  clerks  are  married :  I  have  seen  the  un- 
happy list."  No  matter  what  the  subject,  whether  Topsy 
or  " Thanatopsis,"  mention  "women,"  and  the  old  joke 
appears,  ineradicably  suggestive  of  something  not  said. 

References  to  whisky  and  Democracy ;  to  finance  and 
its  intricacies ;  to  party  shibboleths  and  motions  for  ad- 
journment ;  to  the  youth  and  age  of  members,  and  by 
the  member  who  would  "  not  kick  at  nothing  for  fear  of 
a  sprain ;"  to  the  devil  and  the  Lower  House,  where  he 
presides  ;  to  old  Jacob  Townsend  ;  to  victorious  election 
prophecies  and  news  ;  to  Daniel  and  the  locked-jawed 
lions,  and  the  other  roaring  lion — the  lobby ;  to  Sir  Boyle 
Roche's  mixed  metaphor  of  rat,  bird,  and  bud  ;  to  "  loy- 
ality  ;" — these  furnish  the  chitchat  of  debate.  There  are 
certain  quotations  very  common,  such  as,  "111  fares  the 
land;"  and  on  funeral  occasions  that  "storied  urn"  is 
sure  to  make  an  "animated  bust."  "Your  gory  locks" 
are  as  sure  to  be  shaken  as  "the  galled  jade  to  wince." 
That  jade  has  winced  till  she  has  quite  lost  her  winsome 
ways.  General  Morris's  woodman  has  so  often  been  be- 
sought to  "spare  that  tree,"  that  the  theme  is  hackneyed ; 


228  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

and  Mr.  Bryant's  "  drapery  "  has  been  a  good  deal  crum- 
pled by  insane  though  pleasant  "dreams."  On  solemn 
occasions  there  have  been  a  sufficiency  of  "  weeping  her- 
mits "  dwelling  around  the  Congressional  Cemetery,  to 
make  a  procession  of  the  Middle  Ages  to  the  Holy  Sep- 
ulchre. Dr.  Fell,  and  the  unreasoning  prejudice  which 
the  poet  entertained  against  that  physician,  and  which  he 
could  not  explain,  constantly  appears.  Whether  the  doc- 
tor had  given  the  poet  the  wrong  medicine,  or  had  injured 
him  in  a  mysterious  way,  it  is  never  explained  why  the 
doctor  was  disliked.  Following  the  doctor,  as  a  monu- 
ment of  his  services,  the  "perennius  cere  "  of  Horace  stands 
sublime,  a  classic  model  for  the  perpetual  and  brazen 
emulation  of  rhetoric  art.  Tweedledum  and  Tweedle- 
dee  often  had  mightier  differences  than  the  members 
who  went  to  Bladensburg  in  the  gray  of  the  morning  to 
continue  the  previous  day's  courtesies  with  pistols.  Ah, 
Swan  of  Avon  !  how  often  in  the  legislative  hall  has  your 
deathless  song  "  overcome  us,  like  a  summer  cloud,  with- 
out our  special  wonder,"  at  the  frequency  of  the  itera- 
tion !  How  often  has  "man's  inhumanity  to  man"  made 
countless  millions,  outside  and  inside  of  Congress,  mourn 
for  the  novelty  of  the  phrase !  Then,  that  lyric  origi- 
nality appealing  for  the  return  of  the  vilest  sinner,  with 
that  vestal  lamp,  was  as  exhaustless  as  the  widow's  cruse 
of  oil.  Nisi  bonum  still  lives  along  with  the  "  nilmortuiis  " 
a  deathless  eulogy  !  There  is  that  gun  grown  rusty  firing 
at  duck  and  plover !  No  wonder  the  old  fusil  has  so 
often  kicked  her  owner  over.  More  than  thirty  times, 
"thrice  hath  he  been  armed  who  hath  his  quarrel  just," 
and  yet  justice  overtook  him  in  spite  of  his  iron -clad 
investiture !  Rarely  has  Tennyson  been  quoted.  Now 
and  then  "  In  Memoriam  "  has  invoked  a  funereal  smile  ; 


THE    HUMORS   OF    LEGISLATIVE   CHITCHAT.  2 29 

but  only  a  dozen  quotations  have  celebrated  the  hero  and 
the  horse  that  came  through  the  mouth  of  hell  with  all 
that  was  left  of  the  Six  Hundred.  The  sore-eyed  god- 
dess of  Justice,  with  bandages,  must  often  have  the  "Jtat" 
of  justice,  with  the  "mat"  of  "  ccelum."  Sometimes  the 
man  who  was  bitten  by  the  mad  dog  is  eulogized  for  the 
uses  of  veracity  when  the  dog  has  a  funeral.  The  man 
recovers  from  the  bite ;  the  dog  invariably  dies.  How 
few  are  the  mourners  over  that  oft -repeated  decease  ! 
Madame  Roland  has  often  approached  the  scaffold,  and 
shrieked,  "  Oh,  Liberty  !  what  crimes  are  done  in  thy 
name !" 

Why  should  there  be  immoderate  fun  over  such  an  un- 
grammatical  trialogue  as  this,  unless  whisky  were  in  it? 

FIRST  SENATOR.  "  This  liquor  sold  at  five  dollars  per 
gallon."  SECOND  SENATOR.  "Was  it  good?"  THIRD 
SENATOR.  "  Did  you  taste  it  ?  Was  it  copper-distilled  ?" 
FIRST  SENATOR.  "We  did,  and  it  were  good.  It  was 
steam  distillation." 

Sometimes  there  is  a  Champagne  bead  of  sparkle  even 
on  whisky.  The  whisky  tax  is  up,  and  its  frauds  are  un- 
der discussion.  MR.  MORRILL.  "A  large  amount  is  eas- 
ily concealed."  MR.  EDMUNDS.  "  Through  a  glass  ?" 
"Darkly,"  said  another.  "It  is  back-handed  arithme- 
tic," said  General  Schenck,  "to  suggest  on  the  whisky 
tax  that  although  the  distiller  loses  at  a  dollar  and  a  half 
per  gallon,  he  makes  it  up  by  selling  a  large  quantity." 

The  same  member,  on  the  same  topic,  told  of  an  ingen- 
ious way  of  making  revenue,  but  not  for  the  Government. 
An  illicit  still  has  two  partners.  One  partner  runs  the 
still,  which  is  worth  twenty  dollars  ;  the  other  informs  on 
him,  and  gets  three  hundred  dollars.  They  divide. 

"  Does  my  friend  propose   a  discriminating  duty  on 


230  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

books  according  to  their  contents  ?"  referring  to  French 
novels,  asks  Judge  Thurman  of  Mr.  Conkling,  who  re- 
sponds :  "  I  would  no  more  deprive  your  party  of  French 
novels  than  of  other  things  which  enter  into  its  constitu- 
tion." 

Distilleries,  by  a  certain  bill,  were  to  close  Saturday 
night,  and  resume  Monday.  The  holy  horror  of  the 
Peoria  member,  Mr.  Ingersoll,  can  hardly  be  described. 
"  Two  thousand  bushels  of  the  refuse,  a  day,  will  feed  five 
thousand  hogs  and  five  hundred  head  of  cattle  from  a 
distillery.  It  runs  from  November  till  May,  and  you  re- 
quire the  hogs  and  cattle  to  fast  one  day  out  of  seven 
during  that  time.  God  save  the  republic !"  Sometimes 
these  phosphorescent  will-o'-the-wisps  in  the  dreary  Ge- 
henna of  debate  arise  from  so  dry  a  bone  as  the  refer- 
ence of  a  bill  to  a  committee.  A  grave  Senator  once 
proposed  to  refer  the  subject  under  discussion — as  to 
worms  boring  into  a  ship's  bottom — to  the  "  Committee 
on  Mines  and  Mining !"  Amendments  to  tax  bills  give 
rise  to  much  of  this  small  wit.  Opposing  a  tax  on  mu- 
sical instruments  is  destroying  the  "  harmony  "  of  legis- 
lation ;  inserting  "  corn-crackers  "  (poor  whites)  in  place 
of  "  corn-shellers  "  (agricultural  implements) ;  striking  out 
the  word  "  grain  "  from  "  grain  cradles,"  leaving  the  tax 
on  the  couch  of  babyhood ;  umbrellas,  too,  are  "  luxuries," 
and  should  be  taxed ;  "  clock  springs  and  trimmings " 
give  rise  to  an  amendment  complimentary  to  the  ladies ; 
"retorts"  are  amended  by  adding  the  word  "courteous;" 
"flavoring  extracts  for  cooking"  is  the  occasion  of  a 
dash  at  Wethersfield  and  onions ;  "  horn,  horn-tips,  and 
hoofs  "  is  amended  by  adding  "  tails,"  to  make  the  ani- 
mal complete  ;  "  leggings  "  is  stricken  out,  for  the  benefit 
of  a  border  member's  constituents,  and  so  on. 


THE   HUMORS    OF    LEGISLATIVE   CHITCHAT.  231 

A  question  arises  as  to  taxing  theatres.  An  amend- 
ment is  offered  that  "  performances  "  should  not  refer  to 
the  acrobatic  sports  of  the  House;  then  another  amend- 
ment to  insert  after  "  sports  "  the  words  "  zampillaerosta- 
teur,  prestidigitateur,  or  A.  Ward's  wax-works."  There- 
upon arises  a  debate  that  would  have  honored  John 
Brougham's  "  Columbus  "  burlesque.  "  You  tax  Falstaff 
and  Hamlet,  the  sock  as  well  as  the  buskin ;  '  London 
Assurance '  has  to  pay  for  its  presumption."  "  We  tax 
6  A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts,' "  cries  out  a  serious 
judge  of  Massachusetts.  "Othello,"  says  another;  and 
that  strikes  home  to  the  last  gentleman,  whose  politics 
are  colorable.  And  thus  the  little  quips  go  round.  But, 
after  all,  Thespis  had  to  pay  taxes  for  his  cast. 

There  are  many  laughs  at  advantages  and  opportuni- 
ties gained  or  lost  in  the  order  of  business  and  debate, 
and  by  the  rulings  of  the  chair,  and  even  about  the  seats 
and  propinquities  of  members.  They  are  the  domestici- 
ties of  the  legislative  hearth,  and  are  not  to  be  counted 
except  as  the  pleasant  gossip  of  the  household.  They 
are  hardly  condiments  to  the  table  :  they  are  rather  boti- 
bons.  They  are  never  too  frequent,  and  seldom  cloy. 
There  is  always  a  little  humor  over  the  point  of  engross- 
ing or  referring  a  bill.  Such  debates  occur  as  to  the  or- 
der and  postponement  of  business.  The  Senate  was  in 
a  dead-lock  one  night.  Senators  Casserly  and  Edmunds 
locked  horns,  and  the  contest  was  on  Locke.  "  My  friend 
falls  under  the  epigram  of  John  Locke :  he  knows  some- 
thing, assumes  a  great  deal,  and  jumps  at  a  tremendous 
conclusion."  "I  may  fall  under  the  epigram  of  Locke," 
said  the  caustic  Senator;  "my  friend  falls  under  the 
lock  itself."  Rejometh  Casserly  :  "That  retort  takes  so 
long  to  find  out,  it  may  be  turned  over  to  the  next  gen- 


232  WHY    WE   LAUGH. 

eration."  In  rebuttal:  "Your  children,  then,  will  know 
what  it  means." 

Said  Judge  THURMAN  :  "  Not  a  word  has  yet  been  said 
about  the  corpus  of  this  bill."  Judge  DRAKE  :  "  Let  us 
make  this  a  corpus  delicti"  "It  will  be  a  caput  mortu- 
um  soon,"  rejoined  the  judge.  The  lawyers  are  pleased. 
Such  good  temper  saves  hours  of  wrangle. 

This  Latin  phrase,  "Non  nostrum  tantas  componere 
lites"  was  translated  by  a  Yankee  Senator,  "Let  every 
man  skin  his  own  game." 

A  member  of  the  "American  party,"  in  1855,  was  mak- 
ing a  furious  speech.  It  had  in  it,  "Dulce  et  decorum  est 
pro  p atria  mori"  Mr.  Cumback  objected  to  the  use  of 
foreign  languages  by  a  member  of  the  American  party. 

The  use  of  Latin  is  a  theme  for  jocosities.  When  a 
Senator  was  called  to  account  for  using  "gravamen"  he 
asked  forgiveness,  as  he  understood  about  as  much  of 
Latin  as  his  friend  did  of — English  ! 

"I  would  like  to  ask  the  gentleman  a  question."  All 
attend  seriously.  "Will  you  give  way  to  —  adjourn?" 
All  laugh. 

"  I  make  a  point,"  said  a  Senator,  "  that  it  is  not  in  or- 
der before  intelligent  men  to  demonstrate  an  absurdity — 
such  as  the  consistency  of  the  other  party."  The  point 
was  not  well  taken.  But  the  Senator  on  whom  it  was 
made  found  the  laugh  confusing. 

"Gentlemen — Mr.  President—  No;  I  was  address- 
ing the  Senate,  and  inadvertently  called  the  body  f  gen- 
tlemen.' "  This  was  one  of  the  natty  hits  of  Nye. 

"  I  would  rather  be  a  live  aunt,"  said  a  member,  in  re- 
ply to  General  Schenck's  remark  as  to  the  ants  nibbling 
his  tariff  bill  to  death— "a  live  aunt—"  WThen  thus  the 
general  interposed,  "Than  a  dead  uncle." 


THE    HUMORS   OF   LEGISLATIVE   CHITCHAT.  233 

A  Senator  had  used  the  word  "infamously."  It  was 
decided  unparliamentary.  He  apologized,  and  was  sor- 
ry :  "  but  it  had  done  its  office  before  the  country." 

The  Diplomatic  Appropriation  is  up.  "  I  move  to 
strike  out  Greece."  "  No,  no ;  rub  it  out,"  said  Judge 
Peters,  of  Maine. 

"Will  the  gentleman  yield  to  adjourn?"  "No,  sir;  I 
am  intensely  interested  in  the  remarks  I  am  making." 
Over  this  member  hangs  the  cloud  of  obscurity.  He  de- 
serves embalming,  though  nameless. 

"  The  bill  reads,"  said  John  Cochrane,  "  *  For  the  pros- 
ecution of  the  work  on  the  Capitol.'  It  should  read, '  For 
the  prosecution  of  those  who  work/  " 

The  Postmaster-general  "  totes  civilization  in  his  mail- 
bags,  and  lets  it  out  all  over  the  Indian  country."  This 
was  Mr.  Toombs's  patois. 

A  Senator  says,  "The  Senate  keeps  a  bar,  and  is  ad- 
dicted to  railing,"  referring  to  the  counter  of  the  "  Hole 
in  the  Wall,"  by  a  double-entendre. 

"Experientia  docet"  said  Caleb  Cushing.  To  which 
Mr.  Ingersoll,  sotto  voce :  " Nocet" 

Referring  to  a  former  debate  on  the  compromises  of 
1850,  in  which  he  had  taken  a  part,  Governor  Corwin  re- 
peated and  translated,  amidst  great  laughter,  the  phrase, 
"Quorum  magnet  pars  fui"  as  "A  part  of  whom  I  was 
which." 

Discussing  the  California  seizure  before  the  Mexican 
war,  a  member  said  :  "  If  a  foreign  nation  should  conquer 
one  of  our  States,  her  Senators  would  ipso  facto  be  func- 
tus  officio."  The  Latin  was  made  thus  to  laugh  by  the 
rhetorical  Rhett. 

Mr.  Outlaw,  of  North  Carolina,  is  declared  eo  nomine 
out  of  order.  Some  one  asks  Joseph  R.  Chandler  what 


234  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

keel-hauling  is?  He  said  it  was  a  hardship.  Did  the 
Senator  say  that  these  steamers  are  planked  with  South- 
ern pine?  "Certainly,  I  said  so."  "That  is  a  great 
deal  better  than  Northern  oak."  This  pun  was  from  a 
Southern  Senator,  and  had  a  sectional  point  beyond  the 
verbal. 

Have  my  readers  ever  heard  of  a  "  third-head  speech  ?" 
It  is  not  referred  to  in  our  standard  works  upon  rheto- 
ric, but  a  North  Carolinian  defined  it :  "  Gentlemen,  first 
I'll  tell  you  what  I  know,  and  you  don't  know ;  second, 
what  you  know,  and  I  don't  know ;  and  third,  what  nei- 
ther you  nor  I  know  any  thing  about."  The  last  is  the 
third  head. 

"Three  Congresses,"  said  General  Millson,  "have  I 
been  a  member  of— Malus,  Pejor,  and  Pessimus ;  and  this 
is  the  worst." 

A  hippodrome  for  army  exercises  is  under  discussion. 
"  Riding  in  a  house,"  it  is  called  by  a  euphemism.  It  is 
at  once  American  and  original. 

"White  male  American  citizens,  or  any  such  persons 
who  have  declared  their  intention  to  become  such  !"  This 
was  the  phraseology  of  a  Territorial  bill.  It  was  a  laugh- 
able blunder — made  so  by  a  query  :  "  How  can  they  in- 
tend to  become  such  male  citizens  ?" 

Mr.  Zollicoffer  had  his  vote,  notwithstanding  his  ab- 
sence. If  members  were  within  the  bar  before  the  next 
name  on  the  roll  was  called  they  were  entitled  by  an  old 
rule  to  vote,  and  so  it  was  humorously  ruled  for  him  as 
he  was  last  on  the  list !  Once  being  absent  when  my 
name  was  called,  it  was  good-humoredly  allowed  that  I 
might  vote  on  the  suggestion  to  spell  it  with  a  K ! 

A  bill  is  before  the  House  to  pay  a  pension  during  the 
"  natural  life  ;"  but  Mike  Walsh  did  not  care  whether  the 


THE    HUMORS   OF    LEGISLATIVE   CHITCHAT.  235 

man's  life  was  natural  or  unnatural — he  wanted  to  pay 
him  for  life  only. 

There  was  a  dead-lock  in  the  Senate;  no  quorum. 
"  Is  any  thing  in  order,"  said  Mr.  Hale,  "  except  silent 
contemplation  of  this  state  of  affairs  ?  I  mean  what  I 
say.  That  is  so  uncommon  here,  that  I  am  not  under- 
stood," said  the  same  inveterate  wit. 

"  The  Indians  were  to  be  carried  so  far  West  that  sun- 
set wouldn't  find  them."  This  is  President  Monroe's  re- 
corded joke,  and  often  repeated  in  Congress  until  recent- 
ly. "  I  do  not  like  to  be  backbitten  to  my  face — and  not 
respond."  "  I  want  to  bring  this  railroad  bill  within  gun- 
shot of  the  Constitution."  A  public  building  has  two 
sides  faced  with  stone.  It  is  called  as  absurd  a  botch 
as  a  linen  shirt  with  a  cotton  bosom.  Then  the  point  is 
made  that  as  most  members  wear  a  cotton  shirt  with  a 
linen  bosom,  the  building  is  not  botch-work  ! 

"It  is  not  law;  it  is  not  sense;  it  is  not  good  non- 
sense." "The  relapse,"  referring  to  President  Tyler's 
change  from  Whig  to  Democrat,  "  was  worse  than  the  dis- 
ease." "  Gentlemen  need  courage,  brandy-and-water,  or 
delirium  tremens  to  bring  them  to  the  sticking -point." 
"Is  not  the  Indian  a  native  American  ?"  asked  Mr.  Roose- 
velt. "  No ;  that  is  a  Virginia  abstraction,"  said  anoth- 
er. "  Between  the  Blue  Mountains  and  Rocky  Ridge  it 
never  rains,"  said  a  Celtic  member,  "  winter  or  summer, 
save  a  short  period  in  the  spring."  "The  gentleman 
takes  me  up  before  I  am  down."  "If  there  is  one  good 
thing  the  President  has  done,"  said  a  member  with  the 
proud  consciousness  of  admiring  a  just  chief  magistrate, 
"one  good  thing,  sir,  I  would  gladly  mention  it." 

"  I  hope  the  gentleman  does  not  suppose — "  Mr.  WISE. 
"  Not  at  all  " — meaning  he  was  after  something  stronger 


236  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

than  mere  supposition.  The  filmy  question  was  clipped 
by  the  razor-edge  before  it  floated  in  on  the  House. 
"  There  is  a  class  here,  sir,  that  always  gobbles  with  the 
turkeys. and  roosts  with  the  roosters.  They  vote  with 
Polk  and  talk  with  Santa  Anna."  "  Did  this  soldier  de- 
sert his  wife  to  serve  in  the  army,  or  desert  the  army  to 
serve  his  wife  ?"  "  I  admit  he  shot  the  man  ;  but  he  did 
it  with  small  shot.  It  didn't  hurt  much  !"  "  The  gentle- 
man says  the  newspapers  supplied  us  with  brains.  Who 
supplied  him  with  that  essential  commodity ?"  "It  is 
curious  that  there  should  be  so  many  'points  of  order '  in 
so  disorderly  a  body."  A  member  moves  to  strike  out 
two  words  as  surplusage.  He  is  complimented  profuse- 
ly for  his  first  and  grand  effort  at  economy.  A  member 
states  with  refreshing  ambiguity  that  he  knew  his  col- 
league was  in  order  in  voting,  as  his  head  went  over  the 
bar,  just  after  his  name  was  called.  "  If  I  were  to  ob- 
tain rays  of  moonshine  and  concentrate  them,  I  could 
get  a  certificate  in  a  few  hours  that  they  were  indestruc- 
tible." He  stated  a  scientific  truth ;  but  he  did  not  in- 
tend to  be  either  chemically  correct  or  legislatively  se- 
rious. 

A  gentleman  is  called  to  order  for  wandering  irrele- 
vancy. "Allow  me  first  to  reach  Paraguay ;  if  not,  I 
must  stop  at  the  equator  or  here.  My  own  point  is  32° 
20'.  That  is  my  initial  point."  He  was  on  manifest 
destiny,  and  went  on. 

"The  gentleman  complains  that  I  did  not  allow  his 
party  a  whole  geological  era  to  reform  abuses.  Sir,  by 
that  time  we  shall  be  fossil  remains  ourselves." 

"  I  do  not  want  one  thing  asked  for  Esau,  when  Jacob 
is  to  benefit  by  it." 

Mr.  Hale,  considering  his  mind  doubtful  on  a  certain 


THE    HUMORS   OF    LEGISLATIVE   CHITCHAT.  237 

point,  proposed  to  pair  off  with  two  adverse  Senators 
from  Indiana. 

The  longest  debates  are  on  the  waste  of  time  in  use- 
less talking.  There  was  no  Congress  like  that  of  1853 
for  these  discussions.  One  day  a  member  arose,  and 
said,  "  We  have  shown  such  a  disposition  to  work  to-day, 
it  would  be  a  pity  to  do  it ;"  and  the  committee  rose. 

A  point  of  order  is  made  on  an  amendment  as  to  the 
use  of  liquors  in  the  navy  as  a  beverage.  "  Liquor  is 
not  germane ',"  says  one;  another  inquires  if  it  is  lager? 

A  petition  on  Spiritualism  and  its  occult  mysteries  was 
presented  to  the  Senate.  It  was  moved  to  refer  it  to  the 
Foreign  Affairs,  or  the  "three  thousand  clergymen."  It 
was  suggested,  finally,  to  lay  it  on  the  table,  without  a  rap 
of  dissent  from  spirit  or  gavel. 

The  previous  question  cut  off  debate  on  a  bill  which 
Colonel  Benton  opposed.  "  Sir,"  said  he,  "  it  covers  up 
what  is  to  be  done ;  but  I  can  look  as  if  I  were  opposed 
to  the  bill,  at  any  rate." 

A  member  looks  at  the  clock ;  his  time  is  out ;  he  sees 
the  lifted  gavel.  How  gracefully  he  yields  to  the  suc- 
ceeding gentleman,  provided  he  does  not  speak  too  long. 

What  rare  good  temper  was  there  in  1855,  when  Sen- 
ators Pearce,  of  Maryland,  Douglas,  Butler,  of  South  Caro- 
lina, and  Badger  —  all  regents  at  one  time  of  the  Smith- 
sonian— forgot  science  to  be  molecules  of  this  parliament- 
ary microcosm.  Their  ways  were  ways  of  pleasantness, 
and  their  paths  were  peaceful.  One  of  these  Senators 
once  called  legal  points  "technical  funnels."  Once,  in 
debating  the  sanctity  and  legality  of  proofs,  Butler  was 
contending  that  the  tombs  of  Pulaski  and  Nathaniel 
Green  were  higher  evidence  than  the  "ambulatory  pa- 
rol ;"  then,  dashing  in  upon  Senator  Toombs,  who  was 


238  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

contradicente,  he  said,  "  In  Georgia  they  resort  to  an  al- 
manac, and  think  it  good  evidence  for  any  thing  it  con- 
tains.'" 

Many  of  these  light  effusions  merely  hang  on  the  verge 
of  mirth,  are  merely  verbal  passages  ;  they  turn  on  a  word 
or  a  phrase,  or  hardly  on  any  thing ;  but  by  some  felici- 
ty they  tickle  the  midriff  of  the  body. 

MORE   VERBAL    HUMORS. 

Once,  in  Parliament,  Lord  Mounteagle  made  a  deli- 
cately subtle  play  on  the  name  of  the  economist,  Joseph 
Hume.  There  was  method  in  it,  as  he  said,  "  To  err  is 
Hum-w\"  Mr.  Hume  forgave  him  divinely.  But  was 
it  any  worse  than  this  ?  "  I  would  have  Mr.  Hale  excused, 
because  he  is  not  hearty"  Or  this  :  "The  gentleman  is 
inflamed.  Let  him  be  put  out !" 

A  New  Yorker  wanted  the  opposition  to  be  sworn  over 
again,  as  the  "  old  swear  "  to  the  Constitution  had  "  run 
out." 

Said  General  Nye,  "  There  is  only  one  part  of  finance 
I  understand—disbursement."  "  Quack  medicines  "  were 
defined  by  some  member  as  "  half  poison  and  half  profit." 

"Prim&  fade"  as  defined  by  a  Vermonter,  " is  a  case 
good  on  its  face,  but  bad  in  the  rear." 

"  This  immense  sum  is  for  a  movable  dam,  is  it  ?  It 
would  be  better  to  say  a ' damnable  move;' "  and  the  bill 
gave  way  before  the  incursive  wit  of  Judge  Thurman. 

Senator  Bayard  insisted,  in  a  dire  emergency,  on  know- 
ing what  the  "  parliamentary  hinge  "  had  to  do  with  the 
"  dead-lock."  He  oiled  the  hinge  and  enlivened  the  lock 
by  so  small  a  play. 

"The  Senator  was  misrepresented.  He  did  not  say 
the  Governor  would  be  canonized  in  thirty  years,  but 


THE   HUMORS   OF    LEGISLATIVE   CHITCHAT.  239 

cannonaded  for  thirty  years."  This  was  a  touch  of  Tip- 
ton,  and  it  took  as  it  titillated. 

That  was  rather  a  serious  joke  made  in  the  Thirty- 
ninth  Congress  upon  a  Western  Virginian.  He  had  been 
defending  the  agricultural  appropriation  and  the  commis- 
sioner. Attention  was  drawn  to  the  expenditures,  in 
which  a  Mr.  Et  Al  figured  extensively.  "  I  do  not  know 
who  he  is.  Perhaps  a  friend  of  the  gentleman  from  West 
Virginia,"  said  an  Iowa  member.  That  gentleman  disa- 
vowed aiding  Mr.  Et  Al  to  his  place  in  the  department. 
"  No,  sir,"  he  exclaimed,  indignantly,  when  still  urged  by 
the  great  laughter  •  "  I  deny  the  charge,  sir,  that  I  rec- 
ommended any  one  but  the  wives  and  daughters  of  our 
brave  soldiers !" 

"  Preposteriosity  "  is  a  word  used  by  Carl  Schurz.  Mr. 
Morrill,  of  Vermont,  at  once  hoped  such  inflation  of  words 
would  be  banished  when  we  resumed  ! 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  the  jail  of  the  District  ?"  "  I 
have  never  been  in  it  myself,"  answers  a  member.  This 
was  uttered  in  simplicity,  and  received  with  risibility  by 
those  deliberating  on  a  fresh  appropriation  for  the  jail. 

I  have  known  quite  a  play  on  the  words  "  hash  "  and 
"rehash,"  with  very  saucy  and  various  application  to  a 
certain  kind  of  speaking. 

"  If  you  put  a  man  in  charge  of  the  Commissary  De- 
partment, you  have  to  make  him  a  brigadier-general ;  but 
of  what  ?"  "  Of  bean-soup,"  said  some  one,  in  response 
to  General  Logan,  who  was  laboring  by  ridicule  to  reduce 
the  army  expenses. 

A  new  word  is  in  the  finance  bill — "refund."  It  is  ob- 
jected to  as  unusual.  "  Of  all  funds  in  the  world  I  dis- 
like," said  Garrett  Davis,  with  a  merry  ring  to  his  voice, 
"it  is  a  refund" 


240  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

A  Texas  member,  in  fighting  what  he  called  barnacles 
on  the  Indian  service,  introduced  a  frontier  phrase — 
"  Quaker  policy."  He  explained  it  as  the  humane  policy 
which,  with  Bible  in  hand,  tries  to  bear  conviction  to  the 
Indian  mind  that  their  habit  of  cutting  off  other  men's 
hair  is  injurious,  if  not  wicked. 

A  bill  to  relinquish  land  for  a  cemetery  is  called  up. 
A  Senator  declines  to  yield.  "  What !  not  yield  to  a  cem- 
etery ?  You  will  at  last." 

Thus,  words  in  their  transitive  and  unexpected  appli- 
cation have  as  much  to  do  with  humor  as  with  logic ;  or, 
rather,  in  the  very  caprice  of  a  word  and  its  ambiguity 
may  lie  the  fallacy  of  fun.  When  definite  ideas  are  not 
attached  to  particular  words,  when  usage  runs  counter  to 
the  dictionary  or  other  meaning,  not  only  puns  are  possi- 
ble, but  correct  reasoning  impossible.  "  Gardez-vous  de 
1'equivoque !"  is  an  admonition  of  logic ;  but,  as  many 
examples  cited  show,  its  disregard  is  the  source  of  much 
pleasantry.  Philology  is,  in  many  aspects,  a  comic  sci- 
ence. Mr.  Mill  has  seriously  considered  many  remarka- 
ble instances  where  words  have  received  odd  meanings 
by  casual  associations.  In  our  first  chapters,  we  have 
shown  how  easily  the  American  invents  and  manufact- 
ures his  social  and  political  terminology.  Oftentimes 
the  original  meaning  of  a  word  is  left  to  its  fate.  It  re- 
ceives, after  many  vicissitudes,  new  connotations.  It  is 
applied  in  a  narrower  or  wider  sense.  Take  the  word 
'squire,  or,  as  a  Vermonter  would  say,  "  'square  " — it  once 
meant  an  owner  of  a  landed  estate  ;  or  pagan,  which  once 
was  restricted  to  a  villager;  or  villain,  to  a  subject  of 
feudal  bondage,  and  a  thousand  other  words,  which  have 
afforded  "  diversion  "  to  others  besides  Purley.  Not  to 
speak  of  words  in  all  languages,  and  used  too  frequently 


THE    HUMORS    OF    LEGISLATIVE   CHITCHAT.  24! 

in  every  forum,  which  have  bifold  meanings  with,  respect 
to  chastity  and  religion,  there  are  many  which  have  loose 
secondary  and  analogous  senses  to  denote  special  mean- 
ings which  provoke  a  smile.  Indeed,  they  sometimes  rise 
into  the  elegance  of  wit,  as  well  as  the  cogency  of  logic. 
We  can  at  once  understand  why  a  profligate  is  called 
"irregular,"  and  "the  acceptance  of  a  consideration" 
the  receipt  of  a  salary,  or  other  quid  pro  quo.  It  is  a 
positive  pleasure  to  follow  the  change  of  the  word  bigot, 
which  in  Spain  meant  a  mustache,  through  its  transfor- 
mations into  eXclusiveness  in  religion ;  and  when  we 
trace  the  word  rival  to  its  source,  and  find  it  start  from 
river,  to  signify  the  water  claimants  on  either  side  of  a 
stream,  there  is  a  spice  of  wit  in  its  very  history.  The 
English  language  is  an  amalgam  rich  in  synonyms. 

HUMOR    OF   STATISTICS. 

Not  only  words,  but  numerals,  have  been  dressed  in 
fantastical  array,  and  have  been  made  literally  to  cut  a 
funny  figure.  Frigid  statistics  thaw  into  humor,  and 
help  to  give  a  merry  tone  to  dry  detail.  How  the  House 
laughed  at  the  mortality  of  the  Maine  regiments  as  com- 
pared with  that  of  New  York !  It  was  a  question  of  ra- 
tions and  liquor.  The  tax  and  the  Maine  law  played 
their  part  in  the  debate.  New  York  stood  52,  but  Maine 
124;  and  temperance  was  shown  to  be  unhealthy,  and 
Maine  and  its  members  demoralized.  And  the  House 
found  the  figures  funny. 

Once  Senator  Edmunds  proposed  an  amendment  to 
an  appropriation  so  artfully  as  to  change  the  $20,000  for 
goods  to  that  sum  for  transportation,  and  the  $5000  for 
transportation  to  the  cost  of  the  goods.  It  had  pertinen- 
cy against  the  inordinate  cost  of  transportation. 

ii 


242  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

.  One  member,  to  get  a  hearing,  pleads  that  he  has  stood 
on  this  bill  until  his  legs  are  two  inches  shorter  than  they 
were  a  week  ago. 

The  "  force  "  of  the  gentleman's  speech,  said  some  one 
on  the  impeachment  trial,  is  reckoned  at  thirty-three  thou- 
sand words. 

"It  is  alleged,"  said  a  Californian,"that  we  have  traded 
away  fifteen  million  dollars  for  Alaska,  and  have  only  one 
million's  worth  of  real  estate.  Any  man  who  can't  trade 
within  fourteen  hundred  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  an  arti- 
cle ought  to  be  expelled.  Such  a  Congress,  sir,  no  longer 
deserves  the  confidence  of  a  free  people." 

There  was  an  Indian  debate.  It  was  asserted  in  1867 
that  it  cost  over  six  millions  for  a  regiment  in  the  Indian 
country.  One  Indian  was  killed,  and,  said  Senator  Win- 
dom,  by  way  of  lively  comment,  "Six  millions  for  one  In- 
dian, and  it  is  still  doubtful  whether  he  is  dead  or  alive  !" 

The  taking  of  the  census  of  1850  was  before  the  Sen- 
ate. A  Southern  Senator  wanted  to  know  how  many 
bass-wood  hams,  horn  flints,  and  wooden  nutmegs  had 
been  made,  for  was  not  the  South  interested  as  a  con- 
sumer ? 

Mr.  Campbell,  of  Ohio,  was  showing  the  percentage  of 
population  as  to  reading  and  writing,  and  found  Bun- 
combe County,  North  Carolina,  the  lowest,  when  Mr.  Ashe 
asked  for  the  comparative  statistics  of  crime.  This  posed 
the  Ohioan;  for  a  moment  he  admitted  that  Northern 
penitentiaries  showed  most  convicts,  and  by  a  quick  turn 
said, "  Oh  !  we  punish  our  rascals." 

Mr.  Venable,  in  a  glow  of  statistical  inflammation,  ex- 
claimed, "  You  vote  against  giving  bounty  lands  to  sail- 
ors, while  you  are  voting  them  to  railroads,  and  have 
given  forty-two  millions  of  swamp  lands,  which  would  in- 


THE    HUMORS    OF    LEGISLATIVE   CHITCHAT.  243 

elude  the  top  of  Mount  Ararat,  for  the  flood  passed  over 
that  once !"  He  was  called  to  an  account,  and  at  once 
withdrew  "Ararat"  from  the  discussion. 

"How  many  light-houses  are  there  in  that  district?"  it 
was  asked.  "Five."  "I  saw  more,"  said  a  member. 
"They  are  double -reflectors,"  was  the  witty  rejoinder. 
"  Perhaps  you  saw  double,"  said  another. 

How  well  Mr.  Toombs  put  the  proposition  for  increase 
of  wages  !  "  Let  him  do  the  work,  and  give  him  six  hun- 
dred dollars.  Make  him  do  no  work,  only  superintend, 
and  he  gets  a  thousand  dollars." 

Mr.  Corwin,  showing  that  his  political  opponents  had 
changed  in  eight  years,  proceeded  to  divert  the  House 
by  a  calculation  of  how  many  times  the  Wandering  Jew 
would  have  changed  had  he  been  as  fickle  as  his  op- 
ponents. But  how  happily  he  hit  off  these  mutabilities, 
and  excused  them  !  " '  Man  is  of  few  days,  and  full  of  sor- 
row ;  cometh  forth  like  a  flower,  is  cut  down,  and  fleeth 
away  like  a  shadow.7  Long  may  the  Democracy  live! 
for  if  they  were  to  die  suddenly,  they  would  die  in  their 
sins." 

When  the  great  fire  of  New  York  occurred,  a  petition 
to  remit  duties  was  presented  to  Congress.  An  eloquent 
man  was  named  to  present  it — Mr.  Horace  Everett,  of 
Vermont.  He  began  effectively.  He  said,  "  The  sun  of 
yesterday  looked  upon  a  great  and  prosperous  city ;  the 
sun  of  this  morning  looked  down  upon  the  same  city,  and 
disclosed  fifty  acres  of  it  covered  with  ruins !"  When  a 
New  York  member  rose  to  correct  the  statement,  it  was 
"fifty-three  acres  and  a  half!"  This  was  told  by  Gov- 
ernor Seward  to  belittle  a  point  made  upon  him  about 
fractions. 

Once  I  had  the  misfortune,  without  much  intention,  to 


244  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

destroy  the  beautiful  beginning  of  a  speech  about  mar- 
itime affairs,  made  by  a  colleague  from  Staten  Island. 
With  a  splendid  voice,  he  told  the  astonished  House 
that  England  had  so  encouraged  her  marine  that  on  Tra- 
falgar Square  she  had  erected  a  splendid  monument  to 
Nelson,  her  great  sea-captain,  one  hundred  and  sixty-three 
feet  high.  I  begged  "just  there  "  to  interrupt  him  to  have 
a  petition  on  commerce  from  Peck  Slip  read.  The  de- 
scent of  my  friend  was  that  of  a  meteor  from  the  zenith 
and  into  the  nadir.  "How  could  you — how  could  you 
leave  me,  like  Simon  Stylites,  perched  on  such  a  monu- 
mental eminence  ?"  was  his  exclamation  afterward. 

"  You  can't  eat  all  we  raise/'  said  a  Western  member. 
"We  must  have  a  foreign  market.  If  you  consume  all 
our  grain,  pork,  and  beef,  you  must  be  able  to  eat  a  bar- 
rel of  pork  at  a  single  sitting,  and  to  eat  six  meals  a  day 
at  that !" 

"  How  much  Mexican  land,"  said  Mr.  Giddings,  "  will 
reimburse  us  for  the  war,  when  every  acre  is  a  loss  ?" 

The  Pacific  telegraph  was  being  considered.  If  the 
corporator  fails,  Uncle  Sam  pays;  if  the  scheme  suc- 
ceeds, the  corporator  pockets  the  profits ;  and  thus  the 
argument  was  proceeding,  until  a  Senator  asked  the  speak- 
er, "Would  you  invest  in  it?"  "If  the  United  States 
will  guarantee  me  seven  per  cent,  and  my  friend  will 
lend  me  the  money  at  six,  I  will  do  it." 

A  most  humorous  mode  of  keeping  an  account  of  the 
old  State  claim  of  South  Carolina  against  the  United 
States  was  analyzed  laughably  by  Senator  Fessenden.  It 
proves  him  to  be  a  shrewd  fiscal  agent.  In  this  case  the 
officers  of  the  State  went  so  far  as  to  keep  an  account 
with  the  State,  crediting  it  with  interest  accumulating 
on  the  principal ;  and  if  there  was  any  left,  they  then  took 


THE    HUMORS   OF    LEGISLATIVE   CHITCHAT.  245 

the  part  they  had  paid,  cast  interest  on  that,  and  then  off- 
set the  two !  That  is  to  say,  they  paid  their  principal  in 
part,  and  retained  to  themselves  the  right  of  offsetting 
the  interest  which  accrued  on  their  own  payment  of  mon- 
ey due  to  the  State,  to  pay  the  rest  of  the  debt  with ! 

In  an  earlier  chapter  we  have  remarked  that  an  Amer- 
ican stops  at  no  sacrifice  for  his  fun.  Arithmetic,  loga- 
rithms, census  returns,  tabular  statements,  and  other  cold, 
hard  facts  and  figures  fall  before  his  irresistible  attack, 
when  inspired  with  his  laughing  demon.  Redundancy 
of  words,  embellishment  of  style,  principles  and  reasons, 
major  and  minor  premises,  validity  or  fallacy  in  argu- 
ment, all  bow  before  this  genius.  He  will  have  his  fun 
in  season  and  out  of  season.  He  has  Bottom's  ambition. 
He  would  play  many  parts.  It  is  recorded  of  Sol  Smith 
that  he  played  the  High-priest  of  the  Sun,  the  Blind-man, 
the  Sentinel,  the  Secretary,  Rolla,  and  the  Spanish  Army 
all  at  once,  in  the  play  of  "  Pizarro  !"  So  the  American 
legislator,  with  his  infinite  mercurialities,  does  not  scruple 
to  laugh  at  numeration,  and  would  not  hesitate  to  guffaw 
at  the  integral  calculus.  His  humor  plays  in  every  role 
known  to  human  inquiry,  and  recks  little  how  much  mor- 
al indignation  he  excites.  "  Not  all  the  pumice  of  the 
polished  town  "  can  smooth  down  this  native  tendency. 

It  is  said  of  Charles  Lamb  that  his  wit  was  so  gentle 
that  his  benign  heart  would  have  recoiled  from  a  sarcasm 
inscribed  upon  a  grave-stone.  There  is  something  equal- 
ly shocking  in  drawing  figures  within  the  precincts  of 
humor.  Hastily  let  us  close  this  chapter.  We  tread  on 
sacred  ground,  where  no  chartered  libertine  of  debate 
should  intrude.  "  This,  sir,  is  a  true,  but  a  very  melan- 
choly recital,"  said  "Single-speech  Hamilton,"  in  1762, 
when  debating  a  bill  for  additional  forces  against  Spain ; 


246  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

"  for  who  can  hear,  without  pain,  the  profusion  of  the  pub- 
lic money  treated  as  a  selected  topic  of  facetiousness  and 
humor ;"  and  yet  the  famous  orator  of  the  solitary  speech 
had  just  said,  quizzically,  that  he  had  seen  ninety  thou- 
sand pounds  advanced  partly  for  manufactures  without 
material,  and  partly  for  navigations  without  water ! 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — PERSONALITIES.  247 


XIV. 

LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS— PERSONALITIES. 

"They  touch  the  ground,  to  jollily  rebound." 

ROBERT  BROWNING'S  Inn  Album. 

THE  pungency  of  wit  is  seldom  associated  with  mere 
phraseological  conceits.  This  element  of  legislative  life, 
though  it  gives  vivacity  to  the  session,  as  shown  in  the 
last  chapter,  is  to  be  found  in  a  higher  grade  of  hu- 
mor. I  propose  to  characterize  it  in  the  following  or- 
der :  First,  personalities  and  localities,  and  their  points ; 
second,  defending  the  bad  by  the  fallacy  of  fun ;  third, 
pithy  narration  and  application  of  anecdote ;  fourth,  apt 
repartee  and  retort,  and  cunning  suggestion  and  diver- 
sion ;  fifth,  argumentation,  epigram,  burlesque,  and  irony ; 
and,  lastly,  those  miscellanies  which  defy  classification. 

First.  Personalities. 

An  allusion  to  the  personal  appearance  of  a  member 
excites  as  much,  if  not  more,  fun  in  the  English  Parlia- 
ment than  in  our  Congress.  When  Colonel  Sibthorpe 
said  that  he  did  not  like  the  countenances  of  the  minis- 
ters opposite,  as  their  faces  were  the  index  of  the  mind, 
there  was  an  artillery  of  explosions.  But  O'Connell,  in 
reply,  turned  the  House  upside  down  with  its  echoing 
roars  by  referring  to  the  gallant  colonel's  own  face,  bush- 
ily  bearded  all  over ;  and  he  (O'Connell)  "  would  not 
abate  a  single  hair  on  the  point  of  good  humor."  The 
famous  pasquinade  of  the  same  great  Irish  orator  was 


248  WHY    WE   LAUGH. 

made  upon  the  same  theme — whiskers — and  on  the  same 
Colonel  Sibthorpe,  "  to  beard  whom  Nature  had  shaved  " 
the  other  two  obnoxious  and  bigoted  members ! 

Could  any  thing  be  finer  than  O'Connell's  compulsory 
apology  ?  "I  said  you  were  composed  of  six  hundred 
scoundrels,  and  I  am  very  sorry  for  it !"  It  was  the  roy- 
al purple  upon  his  frieze  coat.  It  was  a  personal  gener- 
ality, with  the  subtlest  ambiguity  of  regret.  It  was  worth 
a  centennial  birthday  celebration,  in  which  it  played  a 
festive  part.  But  when  was  O'Connell  at  a  loss  for  words 
of  subtle  flame  any  more  than  Thaddeus  Stevens  ?  Of 
the  ready  wit  of  both  it  may  well  be  said,  as  Sheil  said 
of  the  former,  that,  with  the  improvidence  of  his  country- 
men, he  flings  forth  a  brood  of  robust  offspring  upon  the 
world,  without  a  thought  apparently  as  to  how  they  are 
to  be  clad. 

The  same  kind  of  personal  risibility  which  O'Connell 
provoked  on  the  hirsute  Sibthorpe  was  produced  in  Con- 
gress when  General  Farnsworth  referred  to  General  But- 
ler's face,  and  the  latter  got  tangled  in  the  long  beard  of 
the  gallant  Illinoisan.  But  there  is  too  much  venom  in 
such  allusions  to  be  enjoyable.  Henry  Clay's  supreme 
and  genial  jocosity  is  better.  He  had  a  habit  of  making 
merriment  at  ex-President  Buchanan's  peculiarity  of  op- 
tics, to  which  I  have  referred,  with  such  a  Palmerstonian 
bon-homie  that  no  offense  was  or  could  be  taken.  A  mem- 
ber should  not  be  too  earnestly  bent  on  his  dignity  or  his 
wisdom.  What  said  Punch  ?  "  What  does  Plimsoll  mean 
by  being  so  terribly  in  earnest?"  All  accounted  him 
overstrained  in  his  mind !  He  was  excused  for  insanity. 

The  Farnsworth  and  Butler  vendetta  was  caustic,  if  not 
clerical.  Although  now  and  then  a  playful  personal  al- 
lusion is  drawn  from  Scripture,  it  evidenced  more  the  at- 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — PERSONALITIES.  249 

tendon  which  these  soldier-statesmen  paid  to  the  Script- 
ures as  sources  of  rhetorical  inspiration  than  of  pious  in- 
clination. Referring  to  General  Butler's  former  Democ- 
racy, General  Farnsworth  said,  "  The  light  which  dawned 
upon  him  shames  and  darkens  the  light  that  gathered 
around  the  head  of  St.  Paul.  Like  Peter,  also,  his  deser- 
tion v/as  so  recent  that  he  was  obliged  to  curse  and  swear 
to  make  the  people  believe  it  was  genuine."  On  another 
occasion,  when  twitted  by  an  opponent  for  voting  in  1860 
for  Jefferson  Davis,  Butler  responded,  "  I  did  then,  but 
would  not  now ;  you  did  not  then,  but  would  now !" 

Ex-President  Tyler  once  touched  the  Senatorial  vein 
of  pleasantry  by  referring  to  the  firm  of  "  Madison,  Grun- 
dy,  John  Holmes,  and  the  Devil !"  He  remarked  that 
Mr.  Grundy  had  retired,  leaving  his  Satanic  majesty  to 
take  care  of  the  remaining  partners  ! 

Mr.  Hawes,  of  Kentucky,  on  the  French  debate  in  1835, 
to  which  reference  has  already  been  made,  defending  Quin- 
cy  Adams  from  a  general  attack,  said  that  "  he  did  not 
like  to  see  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts,  whose  long 
career  had  been  crowned  by  that  brightest  of  all  crowns, 
the  suffrage  of  a  free  people,  exposed  to  a  rifle  here,  a 
musket  there,  and  a  pop-gun  over  yonder !"  That  pop- 
gun was  not  so  frequently  fired  for  the  rest  of  the  session. 

Our  rules,  like  those  of  the  Commons,  try  to  guard 
against  personalities.  They  forbid  the  use  of  members' 
names.  The  French  and  Spanish  are  less  punctilious 
on  this  point.  But  while  the  rule  is  not  observed  in  Con- 
gress, as  it  used  to  be,  there  is  no  embarrassment  in  mak- 
ing it  apparent  to  whom  allusion  is  made.  Some  mem- 
bers are  at  once  recognized  by  a  reference  to  their  seat 
or  locality,  to  their  committee,  or  to  their  hobby.  No 
reference  to  the  red  man  in  the  late  Congresses  would 

n* 


250  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

have  been  complete  without  it  pointed  at  General  Shanks, 
of  Indiana,  just  as  a  reference  to  a  tragic  manner  or  to 
pig-iron  immediately  suggests  an  accomplished  Pennsyl- 
vanian.  Once  I  had  occasion  to  insist  on  having  maca- 
roni kept  on  the  free  list.  A  long  and  red-haired,  tall, 
lank,  and  odd  member,  full  of  complaisance,  opposed  it, 
as  he  said  that  he  did  not  affect  the  dish.  It  was  for- 
eign ;  it  was  not  nice.  A  playful  allusion  to  his  being 
fed  on  the  badly  manufactured  native  article  was  an 
ad  hominem  that  brought  forth  a  round  of  fun  from  the 
House,  and  from  him  the  exclamation  that  he  once  prom- 
ised his  wife  never  to  find  fault  with  his  vittels,  and  he 
never  would  again  ! 

That  was  a  very  clever  turn  Senator  Conkling  made 
upon  Judge  Thurman  last  Congress.  "  When  the  Sena- 
tor turns  about  and  addresses  me,  as  he  has  half  a  dozen 
times,  does  he  expect  me  to  respond?"  said  the  judge, 
just  a  little  nettled.  "When  I  speak  of  the  law,  I  turn 
to  the  Senator  as  the  Mussulman  turns  toward  Mecca. 
I  look  to  him  only  as  I  would  look  to  the  common  law 
of  England,  the  world's  most  copious  volume  of  human 
jurisprudence."  Those  who  know  the  judicial  aspect  of 
the  Senator  from  Ohio  will  appreciate  the  force  and  ele- 
gance of  this  superb  badinage. 

The  "long  gentleman's  speech,"  by  an  amusing  mis- 
take, is  used  for  a  short  Senator  who  made  a  long  speech, 
and  the  ripple  of  fun  runs  around  at  Garrett  Davis. 

The  question  of  specie  payments  was  under  discussion 
in  1866,  and  so,  in  clamoring  for  them,  was  Long  John 
Wentworth.  He  begged  Mr.  Stevens  to  lead  them  on 
to  specie.  "  I  believe  it  can  be  done,"  said  Long  John. 
Whereupon  Mr.  Stevens  responded,  "  My  friend  is  large, 
but  he  has  faith,  like  a  grain  of  mustard-seed." 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS— PERSONALITIES.  251 

John  Morrissey  was  once  ordered  to  be  arrested,  under 
a  call  of  the  House.  Mr.  Eldridge,  of  Wisconsin,  amus- 
ingly suggested  two  sergeants-at-arms  for  the  apprehen- 
sion of  the  gladiator. 

Senator  Conkling,  famous  for  his  hyacinthian  lock,  one 
day  inadvertently  referred  to  the  old  abolition  times,  when 
politicians  thought  it  injurious  to  say  that  their  hair  curl- 
ed. Of  course,  in  the  remarks  which  followed  by  another 
Senator,  the  blonde  curl  of  Conkling  became  crisp  with 
more  than  Numidian  elegance. 

"When  he  took  New  Orleans,  he  took  it,  and  all  in  it." 
And  the  laugh  that  time  was  at  one  who  could  stand  it. 
A  member  is  called  a  blunderbuss  without  powder  and 
shot.  Another,  with  a  wig,  is  reminded  that  Absalom 
would  not  have  been  hung  on  that  oak-tree  if  he  had 
been  covered  as  the  honorable  gentleman!  A  member, 
while  our  historian  was  a  Cabinet  minister,  made  an  un- 
intentional reference  to  the  "ghost  of  Bancroft."  Gen- 
eral Breckenridge,  defending  himself  from  having  been  a 
Whig,  said  the  error  sprung  from  the  fact  that  "  his  prin- 
ciples skipped  one  generation  in  the  family.  Part  of 
them  deflected  from  the  right  line."  A  member  by  the 
name  of  Smart  was  noisily  interrupted.  He  exclaimed  : 
"  I  have  a  better  cause  than  that  of  Brutus.  '  Hear  me  for 
my  cause,  and  be  silent  that  you  may  hear!'"  "There's 
no  more  chance  for  this  bill  than  that  you,  Mr.  Chairman, 
or  the  next  best  man,  will  be  translated  to  heaven  for  ho- 
liness." 

Mr.  White,  of  Indiana,  quite  celebrated  upon  the 
stump,  told  the  old  story  of  the  servant  who  was  sent  to 
count  his  master's  pigs.  He  counted  six.  One  little 
spotted  fellow  jumped  about  so  that  he  could  not  count 
him  at  all."  Mr.  KENNEDY.  "Do  you  allude  to  me?" 


252  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

"Oh  no!  you  are  genuine.  I  can  always  count  you." 
The  uncounted  pig  was  an  Indiana  colleague,  who  had 
"Tylerized." 

The  Army  Bill  was  being  debated,  especially  that  part 
relating  to  the  officers'  horses.  General  Curtis  and  Col- 
onel Humphrey  Marshall  had  been  in  the  Mexican  war. 
They  were  prominent  in  the  debate.  Colonel  Marshall 
was  pre-eminent  for  his  Falstaffian  proportions,  with  a 
humor  not  unlike  that  of  the  fat  knight.  "  How  many 
constructive  horses  did  you  ride,  when  colonel  command- 
ing in  Mexico  ?"  asked  the  Iowa  soldier.  "  Never  any  by 
construction ;  three  actually ;  and  I  nearly  rode  their 
tails  off."  The  House  had  monstrous  fun  at  this  unct- 
uous interlarding  of  remarks. 

"  My  record,  sir !"  exclaimed  Mr.  Davis,  of  Massachu- 
setts. "  Why  a  statute  of  limitations  of  ten  years  answers 
my  purpose — nothing  longer  than  three  weeks  will  an- 
swer that  of  the  gentleman." 

"  The  member  has  remarked  that  he  has  not  opened 
his  mouth  to-day,  either  in  a  speaking  or  any  other  ca- 
pacity." "  Fortunately  for  both  of  us,"  is  the  playful  re- 
joinder. 

A  "record"  is  a  terrible  matter  to  a  debater.  It 
touches  his  integrity  and  consistency,  and  invariably  pro- 
vokes fierce  answer.  "You  can  not  assail  my  record." 
"  I  do  not  go  into  small  matters,"  is  the  retort.  "  I  do, 
for  I  shall  answer  you"  "Then  discuss  yourself  and 
magnify  little  things ;"  and  then  worse  and  worse,  till 
rhetorical  flies  buzz  in  the  air,  and  personal  stinging  in- 
sects hum  ;  and  then  the  irritating  personality  is  com- 
posed with  Pickwickian  cordiality.  This  colloquy  hap- 
pened in  1858 ;  the  interlocutors  were  Egyptians,  from 
Illinois. 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — PERSONALITIES.  253 

A  member  with  enormous  voice  and  dervish  gestures 
sits  down  at  the  end  of  his  hour  all  dripping  with  sweat. 
The  pearly  beads  of  industry  are  upon  his  forehead. 
They  make  canals  of  his  corrugations  and  pools  at  his 
feet.  How  is  his  elaborate  and  laborious  speech  an- 
swered? "The  principal  objection/'  said  a  meek,  gen- 
tle voice  in  response,  "  is  that  that  speech  is  not  suffi- 
ciently earnest  and  emphatic."  It  was  the  roar  of  Boan- 
erges and  the  labors  of  Hercules,  followed  by  a  love-tap 
of  Beauty. 

Sweat  plays  quite  a  part  in  legislative  oratory.  A  col- 
league once  failed  to  vote  in  time.  He  told  the  House 
that  he  was  streaming  with  perspiration  in  running  from 
his  tavern  ;  and  the  perspiration  furnished  the  hydrostat- 
ic power  which  pressed  his  vote  indelibly  upon  his  coun- 
try's annals.  He  was  permitted  to  vote.  A  friend  was 
once  sitting  in  the  gallery  with  a  French  lady.  The  stran- 
ger looked  down  for  the  first  time  on  the  agonizing,  wild, 
clattering,  restless,  belligerent,  defiant,  riant,  raging  sea 
of  faces  and  words,  noise  and  disorder,  apparent  below. 
The  French  lady  is  at  first  horrified.  She  thinks  of  the 
Commune,  and  its  petroleum  and  fury.  Finally  she  finds 
her  native  tongue,  and  wit  enough  to  ask,  "Mon  Dieu  ! 
comme  on  parle  i$i !  C'est  comme  si  quelqu'un  avait 
mange  leur  soupe  !"  Heavens  !  how  they  talk  !  Some 
one  has  stolen  their  dinner  !  An  English  writer  hits  off 
this  tendency  to  make  long  perspiring  speeches  in  Par- 
liament. He  attributes  them  to  the  lawyers.  It  is  the 
long  robe  for  the  long  speech  ;  warm  work  and  copious 
sweats  for  the  wool-sack.  The  guerdon  is  preferment  in 
prospect.  "  I  have  never  seen  a  performer  so  interesting 
as  you,"  said  the  Sultan  to  a  French  dancer.  "Dance 
that  again."  Visions  of  Cashmere  shawls,  Persian  silks, 


254  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

Golconda  jewels,  whole  revenues  of  provinces,  also  danced 
before  the  dancer's  eye.  "Approach,"  said  the  Sultan, 
as  he  withdrew  his  chibouk  from  his  mouth.  The  trem- 
bling and  expectant  performer  approaches.  "I  have 
seen  senoras  and  senoritas,  dancers  and  danseuses,  from 
all  lands,  but  never,  never  before  one  with  such  perspira- 
tion. Adieu  !"  The  story  has  an  Oriental  moral  perti- 
nent to  Occidental  oratory.  It  is  this  :  you  do  not  al- 
ways gain  by  the  sweat  of  your  brow. 

The  intensity  of  personal  effort  in  Congress  furnishes 
a  constant  theme  of  wonder  to  the  crowded  galleries. 
On  some  days  the  House  is  utterly  unconscious  of  its  ri- 
diculous clamor  and  personal  belligerency,  and  on  others 
the  scene  is  a  theme  for  its  own  pleasantry. 

The  same  exultation— which  Hobbes  insists  to  be  an 
element  of  humor — which  enjoys  the  points  made  on  the 
able  and  conscientious  men  of  the  House  when  they  are 
caught  at  a  disadvantage,  by  a  parity  of  reason  favors  any 
point  made  by  the  weaker  or  disabled  members.  This 
humor  properly  comes  under  the  head  of  personality. 
When  a  colored  member  makes  a  hit,  it  is  reckoned  the 
better  for  the  social  disability  of  the  source.  The  retort 
of  the  African,  even  when  feeble,  is  received  with  exhila- 
ration, if  not  with  rapture.  It  is  the  disadvantage  which 
the  lawyer  feels  when  a  saucy  girl  witness  heads  him  off 
in  a  cross-examination.  The  wonder  is  not  that  the  pict- 
ure is  so  fine,  but  did  not  the  artist  execute  it  under  some 
sort  of  disadvantage — as  it  were,  with  his  toes  ?  Or  rath- 
er, as  Dr.  Johnson  said  of  dancing  dogs,  the  marvel  is, 
not  that  they  dance  so  well,  but  that  they  dance  at  all. 
We  have  had  during  the  past  few  years  some  half-dozen 
colored  members.  They  have  not,  with  one  exception, 
shone  aloft  and  alone  like  stars  or  the  primal  virtues. 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — PERSONALITIES.  255 

The  ratiocinative  is  not  conspicuous  in  their  elocution, 
but  it  was  compensated  for  by  their  quick  susceptibility  to 
humor. 

It  is  not  pretended  that  personalities  have  in  them  the 
least  particle  of  pure  reasoning.  The  object  of  all  sys- 
tems of  logic  is  to  arrive  at  the  truth.  Knowledge  and 
faith  are  the  desirable  acquisitions  most  important  to 
our  varied  interests.  They  are  none  the  less  desirable  in 
framing  laws  for  great  communities.  How,  then,  can  we 
obtain  true  information  upon  which  to  legislate — how 
examine  evidence  and  draw  conclusions — except  through 
language  unstained  by  personal  conflict,  and  ideas  un- 
tinctured  with  personal  prejudice?  No  blind  impulse, 
or  subtle  intuition,  or  keen  intellect,  will  answer  the  pur- 
pose, unless  restrained  and  directed  by  well -conceived 
principle.  But  what  if  the  principle  be  obscured  by  fal- 
lacy and  obfuscated  by  illogical  methods  and  bad  men  ? 
Ah !  then  logic  allows,  nay  commands,  us  to  use  the  ad 
hominem.  We  may,  then,  destroy  the  pirate's  stronghold 
with  all  the  enginery  of  Aristotle. 

There  is  a  fallacy  known  as  the  ignoratio  elenchi.  It 
lies  in  the  ignorance  of  the  contradictory  of  an  oppo- 
nent's assertion.  When  we  fall  into  this  ignorance,  in- 
stead of  proving  the  contradictory,  or  elenchus,  we  attempt 
to  establish  something  like  it ;  but  as  it  is  substantially 
the  same  thing  to  prove  what  was  not  denied  as  to  dis- 
prove what  was  not  asserted,  the  fallacy  is  used  to  estab- 
lish our  own  proposition  as  well  as  for  the  feigned  refu- 
tation of  our  opponent's.  There  is  no  sophism  so  com- 
mon as  this.  It  is  a  sign  of  passion  and  zeal  without 
knowledge.  There  is  an  issue  joined  on  wrong  points, 
or  there  is  no  issue  at  all.  The  colored  disputants  who 
argued  an  hour,  both  on  the  same  side,  have  their  coun- 


256  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

terfeit  presentments  in  Congress.  One  antagonist  for- 
gets the  principle ;  another,  the  details ;  contradictories 
and  contraries,  particulars  and  generals,  are  mingled  in 
confusion ;  and  while  one  makes  out  a  case  which  no- 
body denies,  the  other  establishes  what  is  utterly  irrele- 
vant ;  while  one  fights  a  word  and  its  meaning,  or  a  col- 
lateral idea  which  has  no  connection  with  the  main  argu- 
ment, the  other  is  overwhelmed  with  appeals  to  the  preju- 
dice of  the  audience,  or  drowned  in  a  raging  sea  of  droll- 
ery and  ridicule.  The  apparent  victor  may  be  the  illog- 
ical antagonist.  He  may  make  an  unfair  use  of  personal 
opinions  or  of  respected  authority,  or  triumph  by  an  ap- 
peal to  the  passions,  or  use  any  other  method,  except  that 
to  the  judgment,  or  the  argumentum  ad  judichim. 

Still,  logicians  admit  that  it  is  legitimate  and  fair  to 
silence  the  advocates  of  falsehood,  or  to  convince  the 
weak  and  foolish  by  the  reminder  that,  whatever  may  be 
the  truth,  your  opponent  is  not  the  man  to  contest  your 
proposition.  Herein  lies  the  only  value  of  those  humors 
which  so  often  take  the  form  of  personalities. 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — LOCALITIES.  257 


XV. 

LEGISLATIVE   HUMORS— LOCALITIES. 

"  Argutos  inter  strepit  anser  olores." — VIRGIL. 
"  The  goose  gabbles  midst  the  melodious  swans." 

NOT  unlike  the  personal  hints  referred  to  in  the  last 
chapter  are  those  which  consist  in  taking  off  localities. 
This  is  a  favorite  theme  for  laughter ;  although,  like  per- 
sonality, it  is  not  a  high  order  of  logic.  Hence  the  mot- 
to prefixed  to  this  chapter. 

Dickens  made  his  description  of  our  new  Eden,  as 
Proctor  Knott  did  of  Duluth  ;  but,  whether  located  in  one 
section  or  another,  such  grotesque  allusions  to  the  locus 
in  quo  of  members  is  enjoyed  as  if  it  were  a  "///  quoque." 

Morris's  story  of  the  "Little  Frenchman  and  his  Wa- 
ter-lots "  is  familiar.  They  were  situated  on  Long  Island. 
The  principal  street  of  the  city  was  visible  at  low  tide. 
He  was  rowed  out  to  them  as  they  were  under  water — 
"cle  ground  vas  all  vatare."  He  had  thrown  his  money 
away  on  the  land.  Of  this  he  was  assured,  and  he  was 
politely  requested  by  the  shrewd  Yankee  vender  to  util- 
ize his  lots  by  drowning  himself  in  them.  This  story 
has  often  been  told  to  show  the  value  of  certain  lands 
in  a  peculiar  locality,  in  connection  with  Congressional 
grants  and  other  legislation. 

How  Mr.  Rollins,  of  Missouri,  played  his  jet  of  fun  on 
watery  Cairo  !  His  steamboat  landed  passengers  in  the 
third  story  of  its  first-class  hotel.  In  the  very  heart  of 


258  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

the  new  city  the  cry  of  the  faithful  boatman  is  "  No  bot- 
tom !"  Upon  another  occasion  another  member  remark- 
ed that  Cairo  was  one  of  the  rising  cities  of  this  Union ! 
To  which,  "  Has  it  risen  above  high-water  yet  ?"  was  the 
apt  response. 

"It  was  an  ancient  enactment,"  said  a  Pennsylvania 
Senator,  "  of  Connecticut  that  no  girl  should  get  married 
until  she  could  bake  a  doughnut  whose  twist  would  last 
a  year."  The  Blue  Laws  and  Puritan  observances  were 
often  adverted  to  with  this  kindly  regard. 

We  remember  the  impeachment  trial.  How  important 
a  part  a  Delaware  witness  played.  He  swore  that  the 
"  eyes  of  Delaware  "  were  on  the  Executive  conduct  and 
War  Department.  What  trepidation  followed  !  In  vain 
the  Chief-justice  rapped  "Order!"  The  laugh  would  be 
renewed. 

Delaware  has  sometimes  received  a  slap  for  being 
small ;  but  only  when  small  States  or  men  are  pretentious 
do  good  men  assail  their  diminished  proportions.  A 
Senator  from  Delaware  cries  out,  "  If  Delaware  had  the 
physical  force,  sir,  she  would  hurl  you  from  her  borders 
should  you  attempt  it."  To  which  a  Maine  Senator,  with 
a  sang-froid  such  as  becomes  an  ice-bound  coast,  "  hoped 
the  day  was  far  distant  when  the  nation  would  array  itself 
against  Delaware."  "  Or,"  added  another,  as  the  laugh 
grew  lively,  "  Delaware  array  itself  against  the  nation  !" 

Wisconsin  once  had  a  difficulty.  The  United  States 
had  given  up  a  part  of  the  State  to  Illinois  and  Indiana. 
Her  delegate  gave  notice  that  if  we  did  not  give  it  back 
she  would  fight  the  whole  nation.  "  True,"  he  exclaimed, 
"  it  is  an  unequal  contest ;  but  the  people  of  Wisconsin 
would  appeal  to  the  God  of  Battles !"  This,  too,  was  re- 
ceived as  laughable  gasconade. 


LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS — LOCALITIES.  259 

A  member  once  moved  an  appropriation  for  a  post- 
office  building  at  Confederate  Cross-roads,  and  the  re- 
pair of  Bascom's  grocery.  Kentucky  took  it  as  personal. 

"  Where  is  the  Seekonk  River  ?"  "  In  Rhode  Island." 
"  How  long  is  it  ?"  "  Four  hundred  yards,"  answered 
Cowan,  of  Pennsylvania.  "  Oh,  longer  than  that,"  said  the 
Senator  from  Rhode  Island.  Judge  TRUMBULL.  "  There's 
no  such  river.  It  is  not  in  the  bill."  "Well,  it's  in  the 
State,  anyhow,"  said  Governor  Anthony. 

Mr.  Tipton  once  used  the  spirit  of  the  wit  of  Dean 
Swift  about  De  Foe.  "  The  man  who  was  in  the  stocks — 
I  forget  his  name,"  said  Swift.  So  TIPTON.  "  The  gen- 
tleman from — I  wish  the  State  were  larger ;  it  is  so  hard 
to  think  of  its  name."  "  Rhode  Island  ?"  suggested  Judge 
Trumbull. 

Mr.  Polk  once  said  that  a  duel  was  fought  in  Rhode 
Island  by  a  North  Carolinian.  He  was  demanded  by 
the  governor  of  Rhode  Island  ;  and  wrote  that  the  next 
time  he  went  there  to  shoot,  he  would  fire  across  the 
State. 

"In  Rhode  Island,"  it  was  said  by  her  Senator,  "we 
kill  our  calves  and  sell  the  milk.  In  some  States  they 
raise  up  their  calves  ;  and  if  they  have  no  occupation  at 
home,  send  them  abroad — sometimes  to  Congress."  But 
Governor  Weller,  in  response,  was  sure  that  all  the  calves 
had  not  been  killed  off  in  Rhode  Island. 

When,  however,  League  Island,  near  Philadelphia,  was 
asking  appropriations,  Anthony  returned  the  compliment 
by  similar  ridicule.  "  There  was  an  iron-clad  took  fire 
on  that  island,"  said  he,  "  and  there  was  not  water  enough 
to  put  it  out." 

Senator  Cole  represented  California.  He  had  charge 
of  appropriations,  and  he,  too,  had  made  an  adverse  dash 


260  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

at  League  Island.  The  Pennsylvania  Senator  (Scott)  in- 
timated that  a  noted  example  taught  that  all  good  works 
should  begin  at  Jerusalem,  and,  therefore,  that  Mare  Isl- 
am!, California,  was  a  good,  place  to  begin.  The  ever- 
felicitous  Edmunds,  well  up  in  geography,  remarked, 
"  Mare  Island  is  not  Jerusalem."  Mr.  COLE.  "  No,  far 
from  it."  This  was  Ionic  in  softness  and  Attic  in  ele- 
gance. 

But  a  Senator  from  Rhode  Island  is  not  always  the 
man  to  touch  upon  localities.  This  Governor  Anthony 
has  often  experienced.  Who  was  it  said  that  a  traveler 
on  horseback,  stopping  overnight,  and  hitching  his  horse 
in  Rhode  Island,  was  sued  in  trespass  twice  next  morn- 
ing —  once  in  Massachusetts,  for  his  horse  eating  oats 
from  a  field  in  that  State,  and  again,  at  the  same  time, 
for  his  kicking  down  a  stone  fence  in  Connecticut  ?  Some 
one  once  intimated  that  Rhode  Island  was  a  large  State, 
for  it  had  two  capitals ! 

It  is  a  common  ruse  of  the  opposition  to  the  indiscrim- 
inate appropriation  for  rivers,  that  some  one  offers  to  im- 
prove a  river  of  no  name  or  consequence.  Judge  Cart- 
ter,  of  Ohio,  once  moved  ten  thousand  dollars  for  an  hum- 
ble creek,  call  Tuscarawas.  How  he  glorified  it  ironical- 
ly !  It  was  a  very  important  river ;  it  began  to  flow  just 
after  Noah  landed  ;  it  was  interesting  in  its  Indian  legend- 
ary \  it  had  national  commerce  before  Columbus  came ; 
bark  canoes  floated  down,  and  easier  than  up,  its  stream ; 
and  but  for  the  Tuscarawas  and  some  other  streams, 
where  would  be  the  paternal  Mississippi  ?  It  was  just  as 
important  as  the  Illinois.  The  Illinois  was  the  objective 
point  of  this  irony.  For  this  badinage,  the  facetious  mem- 
ber was  called  Dan  Rice ;  and  yet  was  not  his  point  in 
the  very  line  of  Whately's  or  Devey's  canons  of  pure 


LEGISLATIVE   HUMORS — LOCALITIES.  26 1 

logic  ?  Even  Cicero,  as  well  as  Horace,  held  to  the  keen 
forces  of  ridicule.  Did  they  not  cut  the  Gordian  knot  of 
vexatious  matters  ?  What  answer  could  be  returned  to 
them  by  regular  argument?  How  else  can  be  defeated 
unmeritorious  legislative  log-rolling?  The  Pascagoula 
Creek,  in  Mississippi,  was  called  up  for  a  fine  sum ;  and 
it  was  urged  by  a  parity  of  absurdity,  that,  as  a  salt-barge 
had  once  been  sunk  in  it  ten  years  before,  there  was  "  a 
port  of  entry  "  on  its  margin. 

A  member,  to  secure  an  appropriation  on  the  last  night 
of  the  session,  prefaced  his  amendment  with  a  vote  to  the 
able,  dignified,  and  impartial  speaker,  and  that  five  hun- 
dred dollars  be  appropriated  to  remove  obstructions  from 
White  Water  River !  "  Is  this  river  navigable — what  kind 
of  craft  ?"  "  Boats  !"  says  one.  "  Flat-boats  ?"  asks  the 
other.  "  Scows  ?"  asks  a  third  ;  and  White  Water  stag- 
nates. 

Salt  River  is  often  a  theme  for  this  legislative  friskiness 
of  a  local  type.  The  same  mysterious  Pascagoula  River 
runs  in  the  debate.  It  is  said'to  be  seven  miles  wide  at 
the  mouth,  and  rims  up  considerably ;  but  not  even  that 
description  could  save  the  appropriation. 

Mike  Walsh  once  offered  an  amendment  for  $5327.39 
for  a  light-house  at  Chittenango,  New  York.  It  was  an 
internal  improvement,  as  it  was  inland.  He  wanted  hu- 
man life  protected  on  the  turbid  waters  of  the  Erie  Canal ! 

Mr.  Wise  once  admitted  that  the  Hudson  was  quite  a 
river — a  "spring  branch,"  however,  compared  with  the 
Mississippi.  The  Hudson  would  do  to  drink  from,  though 
it  was  a  little  brackish,  but  not  so  good  as  the  great  wa- 
ters of  the  West ! 

"If  you  were  to  lift  up  the  whole  State  of  South  Caro- 
lina and  place  her  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  the 


262  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

first  breaking-up  of  the  ice  would  wash  her  off."  This 
was  said  by  a  Missouri  Senator. 

Judge  Douglas  did  not  often  indulge  in  the  frivolities 
of  debate,  although  he  was  always  telling  his  odd  stories. 
Once  he  told  the  Senate  why  the  best  lands  in  Kentucky 
were  called  barrens.  It  was  the  timber  land  next  to  the 
prairies.  In  the  same  debate,  he  asked,  humorously,  if 
it  was  not  a  Californian  who  planted  a  ten-acre  patch  in 
potatoes,  and  had  to  rent  an  adjoining  tract  to  pile  them 
up  on  !  This  did  not  equal  Texas,  where  it  was  said  that 
a  fellow  was  seen  sitting  on  one  end  of  a  sweet-potato, 
while  he  was  roasting  the  other  in  the  fire ! 

The  question  concerned  the  graduation  of  the  price  of 
public  lands.  "Barren  lands  "  were  to  be  defined  by  leg- 
islation. "  It  is  a  description  of  land  found  in  North 
Carolina,"  said  Mr.  Yulee,  of  Florida.  The  State  pride 
of  the  courtly  Senator  Badger  was  roused.  He  hoped 
that  the  Floridian  who  had  traveled  in  the  old  North 
State  did  not  mean  to  make  the  insinuation  that  North 
Carolina  was  in  the  same  situation  as  Florida.  "Why, 
sir,  mine  is  a  modest  State,  and  does  not  expose  her  good 
qualities  to  publicity.  She  generally  sends  her  travelers 
through  her  poor  lands,  and  in  the  night !" 

Once  it  was  my  fortune  to  hear  that  prince  of  humor- 
ists, General  Craig,  of  Missouri,  play  a  little  fun  by  way 
of  answering  some  parsimonious  objections  to  the  distri- 
bution of  seeds.  "I  apprehend,"  said  he,  "that  there  is 
no  land  in  the  gentleman's  State  of  North  Carolina  where 
seeds  will  grow."  "  Has  the  gentleman  seen  the  State  ?" 
"Yes,  sir;  I  have  been  through  it.  The  only  seeds  I 
saw  growing  there  were  tar,  pitch,  and  turpentine  !  The 
people  there  do  not  want  these  tea-plants,  for  they  drink 
sassafras !" 


LEGISLATIVE   HUMORS — LOCALITIES.  263 

In  debating  the  Pacific  Railroad,  there  was  much  pep- 
pery shooting  as  to  routes.  "  If  my  friend  had  a  friend," 
said  General  Craig,  "  who  was  about  to  start  to  heaven, 
he  would  want  him  to  start  at  St.  Louis,  and  go  through 
Springfield  and  Albuquerque !  He  thinks  the  nearest 
route  to  any  given  point  on  earth,  or  over  it,  or  under  it, 
is  by  way  of  the  thirty-fifth  parallel,  or  by  the  ram's-horn 
route !" 

From  time  immemorial — certainly  from  the  time  when 
it  was  said  that  no  good  could  come  out  of  Nazareth — 
the  fallacy  of  pointing  sarcasm  or  humor  at  localities  has 
been  recognized  as  an  element  in  human  nature  and  its 
literature. 


264  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 


XVI. 

WIT  AND  IMMORALITY,  IN  AND  OUT  OF  THE 
LEGISLATURE. 

"Nimium  risus  pretium  est,  si  probitatis  impendio  constat." — 
QUINTILIAN. 

"A  LAUGH  is  too  dearly  bought  when  purchased  at 
the  expense  of  virtue/'  This  may  be  a  classic  platitude 
translated  from  the  Latin  author  above  quoted  ;  but  there 
is  no  didactic  thought  less  heeded,  and  none  which  de- 
mands nicer  heed. 

There  is  an  abuse  of  humor  sometimes  successful,  and 
often  resorted  to  by  the  cunning.  A  French  critic  has 
said  that  the  finest  oratory  has  been  exhibited  in  the  eu- 
logy of  the  dead  and  the  defense  of  the  criminal.  Now, 
all  admit  humor  to  be  out  of  place  at  the  obsequies  of  the 
departed,  although  there  is  a  sort  of  grim  humor  in  the 
repetitious  mockery  of  woe  known  as  Congressional  obit- 
uary speeches.  These  eulogies,  with  but  a  few  excep- 
tions, fill  Mrs.  Malaprop's  definition  of  an  important  ac- 
complishment— "  a  nice  derangement  of  epitaphs." 

In  still  pursuing  this  fruitful  theme  of  humor  under  its 
quasi-personal  aspects,  a  general  inquiry  may  be  hazard- 
ed here.  Why  is  it  that  some  of  the  best  humor  is  in  de- 
fense of  the  bad  ?  Why  is  the  indefensible  so  often  de- 
fended by  fallacious  fun  ?  Does  the  devil  monopolize  the 
best  jokes  as  well  as  the  best  music  ?  FalstafT,  when  he 
defends  his  vices,  lards  the  lean  earth  with  unctuous  hi- 
larity. Hudibras  makes  a  witty  theme  out  of  Puritanic 


WIT   AND    IMMORALITY,  ETC.  265 

austerity,  as  Aristophanes  made  Athens  laugh  rather  with 
than  at  the  corruptions  of  his  time.  Lord  Macaulay  says 
of  the  Athenian  comedies  that  there  are  scarcely  one 
hundred  lines  of  them  together  without  some  passage  of 
which  Rochester  would  have  been  ashamed.  Moliere,  it 
is  true,  like  a  true  man,  exposed  misanthropy,  affectation, 
vice,  and  tyranny,  and  wore  the  sock  for  a  virtuous  pur- 
pose. Is  he  exceptional  ?  Is  ridicule  a  fair  test  of  truth  ? 
Why  have  the  greatest  wits  defended  loose  principles? 
The  English  comedies  sparkle  with  indelicacy,  and  dance 
the  cancan  of  indecency.  Voltaire  plumed  himself  on 
the  superior  bienseance  of  the  French  stage,  and  de- 
nounced the  debaucheries  of  the  English.  Its  wit  may 
have  been  lively,  but  its  sentiment  was  to  him  sans  moeurs 
et  sans  gotit. 

But  it  is  not  my  province  to  reason  about  the  morali- 
ties of  my  subject.  My  object  is  to  show  why  we  laugh. 
And  certainly  we  do  not  enjoy  vice,  in  any  portrayal  of 
it,  as  vice  per  se. 

One  of  the  most  exquisite  pieces  of  rhetorical  humor 
was  once  delivered  by  a  California  Senator.  He  defend- 
ed the  exaltation  of  intoxication  with  such  incomparable 
pleasantry  that  many  went  out  and  imbibed !  The  Sen- 
ate was  left  without  a  quorum.  In  the  spring  of  1870, 
Mr.  Johnson,  recently  elected  Lieutenant-governor  of 
California,  made  a  speech,  almost  a  poem,  in  which  the 
fruits  of  the  vine  were  celebrated  in  a  purple  shower  of 
wit,  and  where  no  tears  but  "  tears  of  wine  "  were  shed  to 
enhance  the  luxury  of  nature's  rich  clusters  and  golden 
goblets ! 

A  Southern  Senator,  giving  a  reason  for  his  absence  from 
a  vote,  while  his  political  friends  were  all  voting  against 
secession  and  compromise,  said  that  in  early  life  he  had 

12 


266  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

this  advice  given  by  an  old  friend  :  "  My  son,  never  find 
yourself  in  bad  company ;  for  if  a  flock  of  blackbirds 
should  light  upon  a  tree,  and  a  pigeon  should  place  him- 
self among  them,  and  a  sportsman  should  shoot  at  the 
flock,  he  would  be  just  as  apt  to  hit  the  pigeon  as  the 
blackbirds."  This  was  a  quasi  but  amusing  defense  of 
obnoxious  conduct. 

It  was  a  question  of  constructive  mileage  in  1853. 
Some  took  the  doubtful  money,  and  some  did  not.  Mr. 
Badger,  who  compares  so  closely  with  Edmunds,  of  Ver- 
mont, in  his  look,  manners,  and  wit,  intimated  that  he 
took  it,  though  it  was  small ;  and  another  took  it,  be- 
cause it  was  larger.  He  did  not  grudge  it ;  he  was  not 
for  leveling  the  pay  of  others  down,  but  his  own  up. 

In  a  debate  as  to  mileage  in  1849,  Mr.  Greeley,  who 
was  uttering  a  philippic  against  the  unequal  system,  was 
badgered  to  very  agony  by  General  Schenck,  as  to  wheth- 
er it  was  or  was  not  fair  to  take  what  the  law  allowed. 
The  one  had  an  ethical,  and  the  other  a  political  or  self- 
ish outlook  at  such  affairs  as  mileage ;  and  their  views 
naturally  clashed  like  flints  with  fire. 

A  fresh  illustration  of  the  way  genius  may  defend,  or, 
rather,  exterminate,  the  indefensible  was  the  debate  on 
the  "back  pay."  If  ridicule  could  have  overcome  the 
moral  sense,  it  would  have  been  on  this  topic.  It  afford- 
ed an  opportunity  for  men  to  develop  those  little  jets  of 
fun  which  burst  out  of  the  fountain  of  human  selfishness. 
The  men  who  did  not  take  the  money  of  course  got  the 
worst  of  the  debate.  The  shrewd  outgeneraled  the  sim- 
ple by  their  wit.  The  latter  were  the  arrant  demagogues, 
giving  up  for  popular  favor  that  which  would  have  helped 
their  households.  Especially  did  the  soi-disant  virtuous 
members  suffer  who  had  taken  back  pay  under  previous 


WIT    AND    IMMORALITY,  ETC.  267 

Congresses.  A  Kentucky  member  cries  out :  "Am  I  ac- 
cused of  stealing  ?  I  demand  a  trial  by  the  law.  How 
does  the  law  read? — 'Thou  shalt  not  steal.'  What  is 
stealing? — Taking  and  carrying  away.  Nothing  said 
about  bringing  it  back !"  An  Ohio  member  who  had 
been  inveighing  against  the  grab,  had  once  had  his  por- 
trait fixed  as  a  frontispiece  in  a  public  document.  How 
Congress  laughed  as  one  of  his  inculpated  colleagues 
held  him  up,  embalmed,  among  the  worms  of  the  capital, 
at  the  public  expense  !  A  Maine  member  argued  "  that 
if  it  was  wrong  for  Congress  to  increase  its  own  pay,  it 
was  equally  wrong  to  reduce  it.  The  rule  applied  both 
ways.  If  it  is  too  high,  oh,  let  not  the  reduction  apply 
to  ourselves !"  In  raising  the  salary,  a  Texas  Senator 
pleaded  that  as  they  had  helped  the  soldier,  they  could 
help  themselves,  on  the  principle  of  an  average  of  good, 
and  this  was  the  story  he  told  :  "  A  mean  man  said  to  his 
wife, '  My  dear,  I  admit  I  am  a  bad  husband,  the  worst ; 
but  I  have  the  best  wife  in  the  world,  and  thereby  we 
make  a  pretty  good  average.'  " 

On  the  same  bad  fallacy  of  fun,  a  Senator  is  up,  argu- 
ing lustily  for  the  abolition  of  the  frank.  Another  Sena- 
tor, whose  significant  name  is  Fowler,  leads  a  pack  of 
Senators  after  this  first  Senator  with  questions  like  these  : 
"  Is  there  any  thing  to  prevent  the  Senator  paying  his 
postage  if  he  chooses  ?"  "  May  he  not  dispense  with  the 
accursed  privilege  ?"  until  the  hoarse  voice  of  Sumner 
tumbles  into  the  fun,  "  The  Senator  may  emancipate  him- 
self by  refusing  to  frank  and  paying  all  his  own  postage." 
Whereupon  the  Senator  who  would  make  reform  is  put 
down  as  a  charlatan.  A  member  in  1866  offered  to  ex- 
pel another  because  he  did  not  take  the  extra  compen- 
sation voted,  while  another  amusingly  argued  that  if  the 


268  WHY  WE    LAUGH. 

salaries  were  reduced,  the  incomes  of  all  Senators  should 
be  equalized. 

There  may  be  many  reprehensible  modes  of  influen- 
cing public  conduct,  when  that  conduct  is  sought  to  be 
ameliorated.  It  is  a  question  of  ethics,  or  casuistry,  wheth- 
er such  bad  means  to  such  a  good  end  are  justifiable.  It 
is  the  old  question,  ever  recurring  in  human  affairs.  Upon 
the  point  we  have  not  the  example,  but  the  precept  of  the 
most  singular  of  all  parliamentary  orators.  William  Ger- 
ard Hamilton  has  left  us  his  "  Parliamentary  Logick,"  but 
his  "  single  speech  "  is  unreported  and  lost.  That  "  sin- 
gle speech,"  from  the  delivery  of  which  came  his  singu- 
lar fame,  can  only  be  guessed  about,  from  the  singular 
rules  which  he  has  left  for  the  guidance  of  public  debate. 
This  gentleman  was  no  sequestered  scholar.  He  was  not 
unacquainted  with  the  actual  workings  of  legislation.  Sit- 
ting in  Parliament  forty  years,  his  only  display  in  his  chos- 
en arena  was  so  meteoric  and  splendid,  that  he  seems 
to  have  despaired  of  further  forensic  glory.  He  limited 
his  exertions  to  observations  and  precepts  for  the  instruc- 
tion of  others.  He  flourished  about  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  His  "single  speech"  was  made  in 
1755.  He  broke  out — as  a  contemporary  describes  it — 
"like  the  Irish  rebellion,  three -score  thousand  strong, 
when  nobody  was  aware."  Grenville,  Pitt,  Lyttleton,  Mur- 
ray, and  Fox  were  his  companions  in  that  debate ;  but 
"young  Mr.  Hamilton  was  at  once  perfection."  Anti- 
thetic, argumentative,  discursive  ;  with  spirited  manner 
and  impetuous  flow,  he  carried  the  House  by  his  vivid 
energy  and  elegance  of  diction.  Yet  this  wonderful  and 
unique  speech  is  a  mere  tradition.  We  may  conjecture 
as  to  its  quality  by  the  rules  which  he  gives  for  simi- 
lar performances.  Would  the  reader  know  his  secret  ? 


WIT   AND    IMMORALITY,  ETC.  269 

Would  he  know  what  were  the  tricks  of  this  parliament- 
ary juggler?  Would  this  juggler  have  the  orator  of  the 
Commons  approve  certain  public  conduct  when  he  cen- 
sured? Yes.  Would  he  have  the  model  parliamentari- 
.an  yield  points  not  material,  admit  propositions  and  deny 
inferences,  state  the  mischiefs  of  the  opposite  extreme  ? 
Would  he  have  the  successful  rhetorician  affect  more 
exact  expression,  introduce  something  flattering  to  the 
House,  suppress  one  thing  and  color  another,  run  a 
vice  into  virtue  and  vice  versfr,  use  fancy  in  molding  and 
varying  a  thought,  observe  what  had  been  heard  with  aver- 
sion and  pleasure,  and  make  happy  amplifications  and 
pauses,  gradually  ascending  to  the  summit  of  grandeur? 
Yes,  yes.  Why  should  not  the  orator  sweeten  discourse 
with  periphrasis,  strengthen  by  conciseness,  avoid  surpris- 
ing novelties,  heap  up  dazzling  comparisons  when  he 
could  not  convince,  and  distinguish  as  to  words  and  their 
meanings  ? 

Our  instructor  insists  on  one  apothegm,  above  all. 
When  you  can  not  resist,  then  use  wit,  fancy,  subtlety, 
and  craft !  Conceal  the  method  you  have.  Evade  an- 
swering an  objection  by  raising  other  objections.  Use 
tropes  of  music,  like  those  of  rhetoric,  to  slide  from  the 
close,  and  deceive  the  expectation.  Perplex  by  subtlety, 
and  overrule  by  imagination.  Before  you  speak,  consider 
the  tone,  whether  high  and  authoritative,  evasive  or  ludi- 
crous. Manage  to  treat  the  ridiculous  and  untenable  of 
one  opponent  as  the  argument  of  all  opponents.  Insinu- 
ate rather  than  assert  censure.  Preconsider  the  finest 
parts  of  your  speech  ;  and  when  you  come  to  that,  hesitate 
and  appear  to  boggle,  catch  at  some  expression  that  shall 
fall  short  of  your  idea,  and  then  seem  to  hit  upon  the  true 
thing !  Pretend  you  do  not  intend  to  speak  long.  Push 


270  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

your  opponent  to  extremes  beyond  his  intention.  Appear 
distressed  at  your  setting  out.  Talk  now  as  an  old,  and 
then  as  a  young  man  ;  now  as  in  office,  and  then  as  out ; 
now  as  a  member,  and  then  as  a  judge  ;  ridicule  and  pan- 
egyrize, deferentially.  Separate  the  ridicule  of  your  op- 
ponent from  his  argument,  and  thus  belittle  both.  Bring 
on  a  personal  altercation,  and  draw  off  thereby  atten- 
tion from  the  main  point.  Couch  close  to  the  auditor. 
Deceive  by  circumlocution,  and  not  otherwise.  Aggra- 
vate only  at  the  end,  and  you  will  be  remembered.  Thus 
the  "  single-speech  "  hero  made  his  precept ;  but  he  re- 
served his  best  thought  of  a  parliamentary  success  by  ad- 
vising that  the  orator  should  show  the  reason  of  a  thing, 
ex  absurdo  e  contrario.  He  advised  that,  when  the  ludi- 
crous turn  was  to  be  given,  the  orator  should  drop  from 
the  high  notes  inte  a  low,  familiar,  conversational  key. 
He  knew  that  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  was  the  best  ar- 
gument for  a  popular  assembly,  and  advised  the  parlia- 
mentarian to  consider,  not  merely  the  weakness  of  an  ad- 
versary's argument,  but  the  absurdities  of  which  it  is  pro- 
ductive. 

So  that  this  parliamentary  phenomenon,  who  gives  us 
the  mysteries  of  iniquitous  practice  in  rhetoric,  at  last  ar- 
rives at  the  point,  that  to  advocate  the  best,  by  bad  and 
tricky  methods,  is  a  virtue  and  a  success !  But  how  few 
with  the  intention  to  advocate  the  best  practice  upon  his 
ingenious  prescripts?  and,  therefore,  how  many  fail  in 
their  single  and  multiplied  speeches,  even  when  assisted 
by  the  most  artful  turns  of  debate.  All  will  agree,  how- 
ever, that  it  is  better  to  use  bad  methods  for  good  ends, 
than  good  methods,  whether  humorous  or  otherwise,  for 
bad  ends. 


LEGISLATIVE   ANECDOTE,  AND   ITS   APPLICATION.     271 


XVII. 

LEGISLATIVE  ANECDOTE,  AND  ITS  APPLICATION. 

"  A  story  in  which  native  humor  reigns, 
'Tis  often  useful,  always  entertains." — COWPER. 

ANOTHER  species  of  humor  consists  in  the  narration 
and  application  of  anecdote.  It  may  seem  strange  that 
so  little  of  that  mimicry  which  accompanies  the  anecdote 
is  used  in  Congress.  That  which  is  so  common  outside 
of  the  legislature,  viz.,  the  Irish,  German,  and  African 
patois,  is  seldom  used  within  its  halls.  Only  once  has 
French  been  appropriated  to  illustrate  by  its  humorous 
expression.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  of  New  York,  almost  sung  to 
a  delighted  House  the  chorus  of  "  The  Grand  Duchess." 
His  opera  bouffe  was  intended  to  show  the  re-re-recon- 
struction of  reconstruction  ;  and  his  iteration  of  "  remon- 
tera  "  with  the  roll  of  the  r-r's  had  a  peculiar  effect.  He 
intimated  that  this  was  the  fourth  or  fifth  reconstruction. 
It  reminded  him  of  Prince  Paul.  When  the  prime  min- 
ister of  his  highness  came  to  the  duchess,  and  proposed 
the  prince's  hand  in  marriage,  he  was  invited  to  walk 
upstairs  ;  then  along  a  corridor ;  then  down-stairs  ;  then 
along  other  corridors,  up  more  stairs,  along  more  corri- 
dors, down  further  stairs,  along  further  corridors,  up  fur- 
ther stairs ;  or,  as  the  French  has  it,  "  11  montera,  il  tra- 
versera,  il  descendra;  alors  il  remontera,  il  retraversera,  il 
redescendra ;  alors  re-remontera,  il  re-retraversera,  il  re- 
redescendra,"  and  so  forth. 


272  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

Listen  and  Jack  Reeves  played  the  broadest  and  rich- 
est humor  known  to  the  English  or  to  any  stage.  Bur- 
ton was  a  great,  bluff  player,  but  a  great  imitator  as  well. 
Indeed,  the  mimic  art  is  rarely  deliberative.  Others  have 
played  humor  more  exquisitely  than  these  artists  ;  but  hu- 
mor when  too  delicate  is  apt  to  lose  much  of  its  humor- 
ous tang.  It  becomes  something  more  than  wit.  It  is 
Beauty  and  Truth.  It  approaches  what  Emerson  calls 
integrity,  the  whole  of  thought,  perfection  ;  and  the  mus- 
cular irritation  of  laughter  ceases  as  we  approach  the  sa- 
cred shrine. 

But  why  should  not  the  humor  of  others  be  "  transfera- 
ble on  delivery,"  for  general  delectation  ?  All  histrionic 
efforts  in  comedy  would  otherwise  die.  We  have  no  less 
authority  than  Terentius  for  the  reproach,  that  those  who 
apply  the  wit  of  others  transfer  to  themselves  the  glory 
of  its  sheen.  But  may  not  your  wit  receive  added  splen- 
dor by  the  performance  of  others  who  distill  or  elabo- 
rate it  ? 

It  may  seem  strange  also  that  a  body  of  men  so  accus- 
tomed to  use  mimicry  and  anecdote,  as  tricks  of  rhetoric 
on  the  stump,  should  not  fully  appreciate  their  use  in  Con- 
gress. But  such  is  the  fact.  The  galleries  may,  and  some- 
times do  appreciate  such  humors.  Whether  because  the 
story  is  too  slow  and  zigzag  a  way  of  reaching  the  object, 
or  whether  the  joke  is  generally  stale — whatever  it  is,  an- 
ecdote is  too  diffuse  and  vapid ;  and  if  pungent,  it  is  apt 
to  degenerate  into  the  coarse  acidity  of  vulgarism.  The 
mummy  jokes  embalmed  for  ages  are  apt  to  re-appear, 
not  to  blush  themselves  with  new  health,  but  to  make 
others  blush  for  the  poverty  of  the  present,  compared 
with  the  richness  of  the  past.  Stories  are  almost  as 
much  out  of  place  in  Congress  as  Shakspeare's  sea-coasts 


LEGISLATIVE   ANECDOTE,  AND    ITS   APPLICATION.     273 

were  in  Bohemia  or  his  lions  in  Ardennes.  Still,  they 
are  not  infrequently  used,  whatever  may  be  their  effect. 
The  Senate  and  House  seem  equally  impatient  and  inap- 
preciative  of  anecdote.  General  Logan  arises  and  tells 
the  old  story  of  the  man  who  bragged  that  he  was  one  of 
the  minister's  converts.  The  minister  rejoins,  "  I  should 
think  so,  for  it  don't  seem  as  if  the  Lord  was  in  it.'"  Does 
the  joke  tell  ?  It  hardly  evokes  a  simper  or  cachinna- 
tion.  But  once  I  saw  General  Houston  quit  his  whittling 
of  cedar  sticks  in  the  old  Senate-chamber  to  plague  Gen- 
eral Cass.  He  did  it  by  relating  the  story  from  Irving 
of  a  fight  between  two  tortoises  on  shipboard.  The  fight 
consisted  in  blowing  at  each  other,  standing  on  their 
hind-legs.  It  was  intended  to  illustrate  diplomatic  lo- 
gomachy. Did  it  win  applause  ?  Palpably ;  but  it  won 
by  the  grotesque  manner  of  the  narrator  and  the  pithy 
pertinency  of  the  story.  General  Hawley,  with  the  soul 
of  wit,  to  show  the  horrors  of  war  briefly  related  for  a  pur- 
pose how  he  once  asked  one  of  his  subordinates  in  his 
first  battle,  "  Colonel,  how  did  you  like  it  ?"  «  Well,"  said 
he,  "  I  am  satisfied ;  but  when  I  saw  my  men  going  down 
all  around  me,  I  thought, '  Can't  this  confounded  thing 
be  compromised?'"  These  instances  are,  however,  ex- 
ceptional, and  depend  for  their  success  on  their  pointed 
application  and  concise  expression.  The  genius  here  is 
not  that  of  the  memory,  nor  in  the  recitation,  but  in  the 
adaptation. 

General  Nye  was  always  happy  in  a  short  story.  The 
question  of  rebellion  and  amnesty  is  up.  "Guilty  or  not 
guilty,  is  it  you  ask  me  ?"  said  an  Irishman.  "  How  can 
I  tell  till  I  hear  the  evidence  ?"  The  story  is  somewhat 
musty.  The  point  was  a  good  deal  in  the  Corwinian 
manner  of  its  relation.  How  well,  not  to  say  how  often, 


274  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

he  told  the  story  of  the  man  who  mauled  the  dead  bad- 
ger, for  the  purpose,  as  he  said,  of  convincing  the  badger 
that  there  was  punishment  after  death !  Not  less  brief, 
as  an  illustration  of  the  "  uncertainty  of  the  law,"  was 
that  of  the  young  attorney  who  had  thrown  up  the  profes- 
sion and  gone  to  speculating  in  lottery  tickets. 

Mr.  W.  R.  Roberts,  of  New  York,  neatly  touched  up 
the  peaceful  character  and  doubtful  existence  of  the  Ku- 
klux  by  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  nowhere  in  either 
party  from  the  South  or  elsewhere  were  there  evidences 
of  violence.  An  Irishman  in  a  strange  town  stood  look- 
ing at  a  vessel.  He  was  accosted,  "Where  are  you  from, 
Paddy  ?"  "  Begorra,  sir,  I'm  from  anywhere  but  here,  and 
I'll  soon  be  from  here  too,  sir."  Argal,  where  were  the 
K.  K.'s  ? 

Illustrating  the  monopoly  of  ferries  over  the  Western 
streams  in  a  remote  Territory,  an  exaggerative  Delegate 
said  that  he  had  known  two  horses  taken  to  pay  the  toll 
for  one. 

General  Nye,  commenting  upon  the  binding  force  of 
instructions  to  a  committee,  told  the  story  of  an  Irishman 
in  one  of  our  big  cities.  The  dogs  took  after  him,  and  he 
tried  to  stone  them.  He  found  the  bowlders  fast  in  the 
street,  and  he  said,  "  It  was  a  very  pretty  country  for  liber- 
ty, to  turn  the  dogs  loose  and  tie  the  stones  down."  This 
Senator  seemed  more  than  any  one  to  make  the  Senate 
redolent  of  the  stump.  He  had  carried  his  hustings  from 
New  York  to  Nevada,  and  thence  returned  it  into  Con- 
gress. He  could  not  strike  an  inconsistent  Senator  with- 
out telling  the  story  of  the  Dutch  artist  representing  the 
Scriptural  scene  of  Abraham  offering  up  Isaac.  He  gave, 
by  a  cruel  anachronism,  a  pistol  to  Abraham  instead  of 
a  knife.  "  How,  then,  could  the  angel  intervene  ?"  He 


LEGISLATIVE    ANECDOTE,  AND    ITS   APPLICATION.      275 

finally  poised  the  angel  on  wings,  with  a  cup  of  water  to 
wet  the  powder  in  the  pan  !  Thus  was  Isaac  saved. 

Classic  wit  is  rare  in  Congress.  The  cu0?//m  of  the 
Greeks  and  the  favete  linguis  of  the  Romans  evince  the 
care  with  which  they  endeavored  to  repress  the  utterance 
of  ill  fortune.  John  Stuart  Mill,  in  his  "  Fallacies  of  Sim- 
ple Inspection,"  shows  that  this  resulted  from  a  supersti- 
tious horror.  The  Romans  avoided  mentioning  the  pos- 
sible death  of  those  living  for  fear  of  the  catastrophe. 
They  scarcely  ever  said  damnum.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
race  is  not  so  fastidious  with  respect  to  such  bad  words. 
Instead  of  mortuus  est,  the  Romans  said  vixit.  They 
only  hinted  at,  never  spoke  openly  of,  adverse  fortune. 
They  simply  said,  "Be  the  event  fortunate  or  otherwise" 
Was  there  ever  a  closer  following  of  the  classic  model, 
without  the  superstitious  fallacy,  than  is  this  sudden  and 
spontaneous  adaptation  to  a  chance  occasion  by  Govern- 
or Anthony  ? 

"  This  bill,"  said  he,  "  is  a  child  of  mine,  and  I  feel  to- 
ward it  as  the  man  did  in  regard  to  his  sick  wife — he 
wished  she  would  get  well,  or  something" 

Mr.  Davis,  of  Kentucky,  turned  the  ad  absurdum  on 
Senator  Anthony  by  a  Celtic  story.  "  The  Senator  says 
that  this  patent  dock  will  save  itself  twice.  A  man  with 
a  patent  stove  met  an  Irishman.  As  an  inducement  to 
try  it,  he  stated  that  it  would  save  half  the  coal  in  twelve 
months.  'Ah,  be  jabers,  I'll  buy  two  of  them,  and  save 
the  whole  of  the  fuel!'" 

John  P.  Hale  once  told  this  story  of  patronage.  "A 
lady  appealed  to  me  to  assist  her,  as  she  had  a  Revolu- 
tionary claim  ;  she  said  that  she  would  go  out  into  the 
street  and  get  some  boy,  and  bring  him  in  and  have  him 
appointed  a  page,  and  she  would  take  half  his  pay  for  her 
ancestor's  services  in  the  Revolution."  This  was  follow- 


276  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

ed  by  "violent  convulsions  of  the  face  and  sides,  and  ob- 
streperous roarings  of  the  throat."  Why  did  the  Sen- 
ate laugh?  What  is  nobler  than  Revolutionary  service 
— what  more  exalting  than  patriotism  ?  The  solution  is 
found  in  the  transcendental  remark  that  when  the  patri- 
otic enthusiasm  ends  in  the  intelligible  maxims  of  trade 
— so  much  for  so  much — the  intellect  feels  the  half  man, 
and  the  whole  man  laughs. 

The  utter  abandonment  to  the  humors  of  the  Senate 
apparent  in  all  John  P.  Hale's  oratory  is  not  to  be  taken 
in  derogation  of  his  abundant  information  and  practi- 
cal sagacity.  But  he  seldom  refrained  from  making  his 
points,  when  they  occurred,  because  they  were  jocose. 
He  represented  what  was  at  one  time  a  small  body  of 
Abolitionists.  The  organization  was  called  "  unhealthy," 
and  he  was  left  off  the  committees  in  consequence ;  but 
he  made  up  for  this  legislative  proscription  by  an  inces- 
sant and  laughing  current  of  aggressive  remark.  This 
was  always  received  with  good  temper.  A  meeting  was 
held  in  the  Buchanan  days,  which  Senator  Bigler  called 
"  semi-official."  Mr.  Hale  had  heard  of  semi-barbarous, 
semi-savage,  semi-civilized,  semi-annual,  and  semi-week- 
ly;  but  the  " semi-official"  troubled  him.  Was  it  offi- 
cial ?  Unofficial  ?  Neither.  It  was  semi-official !  And 
then  he  told  the  story  of  the  man  who  called  at  a  bank  to 
find  out  if  a  bank-note  was  genuine.  "Well,  what  did  the 
cashier  say  ?— counterfeit  ?"  "  No."  "  Genuine  ?"  "  No. 
He  said  it  was  about  middling — semi-genuine  !  So,"  con- 
tinued Mr.  Hale,  "  in  Jackson's  day  they  had  a  kitchen 
cabinet,  as  well  as  a  regular  one.  The  kitchen  cabinet 
met  in  the  parlor :  it  was  semi-official." 

Mr.  Stephens,  of  Georgia,  once  referred  to  the  lawyer 
who  began  speaking  after  the  decision.  The  judge  told 
him  that  he  did  not  allow  arguing  after  the  case  was  de- 


LEGISLATIVE   ANECDOTE,  AND    ITS   APPLICATION.       277 

cided.  The  lawyer  said,  "  Sir,  I  was  not  arguing  the  case  : 
I  was  only  cursing  the  decision."  This  was  pointed  at  a 
member  who  had  re-opened  a  debate. 

Again,  said  one,  speaking  against  the  Pacific  Railroad 
Bill :  "It  reminds  me  of  the  jockey  who  went  to  buy  a 
horse.  Five  thousand  dollars  was  asked.  "  I  have  thir- 
teen reasons  against  it.  First,  I  have  not  got  the  mon- 
ey." "Just  stop  !  the  first  reason  is  enough  !" 

"There  was  a  colloquy  between  two  friends  as  to  the 
certainty  of  the  Millennium,"  said  Etheridge,  referring  to 
the  apparent  harmony  between  parties  as  to  certain  mat- 
ters then  pending.  "The  lion  will  lie  down  with  the 
lamb."  Both  agreed  to  that.  But  one  consoled  himself 
in  making  the  admission  by  saying  that  he  had  the  satis- 
faction of  believing  that  the  lamb  would  be  inside  of  the 
lion  ! 

One  of  the  most  effective  anecdotes  ever  related  in  any 
body  was  that  from  General  Clarke,  of  Missouri,  during 
the  struggle  to  elect  a  Speaker  in  1860.  John  Sherman 
was  the  candidate  for  nearly  two  months.  At  last  he 
withdrew ;  and  hence  the  anecdote.  A  hunter  went  out 
turkey-hunting.  He  found  a  turkey  roosting  on  one  of 
the  highest  trees  of  the  forest.  He  fired  ;  the  turkey  fell, 
and  he  started  for  the  purpose  of  catching  him  ;  but  the 
turkey  got  up  and  ran  off  with  a  broken  wing.  The  hunt- 
er pursued  till  he  got  tired,  and  ceased  with  the  exclama- 
tion, "  There's  one  consolation :  you  will  have  to  roost 
lower  the  rest  of  your  life  !"  But  the  winged  bird  of  1860 
is  now  a  Senator  !  Such  are  the  vaticinations  of  politics  ! 

These  memorabilia  of  anecdote  do  not  pretend  to  rise 
to  the  dignity  of  history,  yet  the  very  tales  and  stones  col- 
lated are  eccentric  indexes  to  the  peculiar  rhetoric  and 
manners  of  our  people,  as  well  as  to  the  public  records 
and  materials  of  historv. 


278  WHY    WE   LAUGH. 


XVIII. 

LEGISLATIVE  ANECDOTE—  CONTINUED. 

"It  is  a  true  shaft  of  Apollo,  and  traverses  the  universe,  and,  unless 
it  encounter  a  mystic  or  a  dumpish  soul,  goes  everywhere,  heralded 
and  harbingered  by  smiles  and  greetings.  Wit  makes  its  own  wel- 
come, and  levels  all  distinctions.  No  dignity,  no  learning,  no  force 
of  character,  can  make  any  stand  against  good  wit.  It  is  like  ice,  on 
which  no  beauty  of  form,  no  majesty  of  carriage,  can  plead  any  im- 
munity :  they  must  walk  gingerly,  according  to  the  laws  of  ice,  or 
down  they  must  go,  dignity  and  all." — EMERSON'S  Letters  and  Social 
Aims,  1876. 

"  Ride  si  sapis." — MARTIAL. 

THE  utilities  of  anecdote  in  legislation  are  not  at  once 
manifest.  Although  we  have  the  example  of  the  Great 
Teacher  in  the  use  of  the  parable,  yet  he  used  that  form 
of  speech  before  the  uneducated  people  ;  and  are  we  not 
told  that  "  the  common  people  heard  him  gladly  ?"  Upon 
the  cultivated  and  disciplined  intellect — with  which  ab- 
stract thought  and  its  habitudes  are  familiar — there  is  no 
need  to  turn  the  various  lights  of  illustration.  It  is  gild- 
ing refined  gold  and  adding  other  hues  to  the  violet.  To 
such  a  mind,  anecdote  and  parable  are  excess. 

Besides,  recitation  and  acting,  in  anecdote,  are  not  evi- 
dences of  originality.  Are  they,  therefore,  proof  of  infe- 
rior ability?  This  is  a  question  which  Emerson,  in  his 
last  volume,  has  discussed  with  the  inconsistency  and  in- 
terest of  an  original  theme — all  sparkling  with  quotation 
and  anecdote.  While  he  holds  that  there  is  an  immense 
content  in  suction  or  quotation — whether  in  insects  or 


LEGISLATIVE   ANECDOTE — CONTINUED.  279 

mammals,  in  parasites  or  men — he  does  not  dignify  the 
act,  except  when  the  assimilating  power  is  proportionate 
to  the  spontaneous  power.  There  are  no  originals.  The 
child  is  a  derivative  ;  the  mother  is — quite  original.  But 
are  the  originals  all  original  ?  Ranging  through  the  vast 
domain  of  human  literature  and  ascending  to  the  arch- 
angels, he  discovers  that  every  thing  is  foregone.  But 
does  he  disparage  borrowing  ?  No.  It  comes,  he  says, 
of  stoutness  and  magnanimity.  Perhaps  he  had  in  his 
mind  the  origin  of  the  milky  way  ;  for  does  not  the  myth 
say  that  its  stellar  splendor  was  the  result  of  too  strong 
an  effort  of  suction  by  the  infant  Hercules  ?  He  would 
justify  the  uses  of  anecdote,  although  it  is  one  form  of 
eavesdropping.  He  commends  quotation,  for  human  in- 
struction. Certainly,  if  he  were  compelled  to  service  in 
a  legislature,  he  would  permit  the  old  Cremona  to  play, 
that  the  dull  hours  might  dance  with  flying  feet.  When 
the  orator,  by  apt  allusion  and  analogous  logic — such  as 
are  often  found  in  anecdote — fills  with  his  own  voice  and 
humor  the  dull  and  empty  time,  would  he  be  too  critical 
about  the  sources  from  whence  come  the  hilarities  ?  It 
is  only  when  a  story  is  told,  which  the  narrator  does  not 
appropriate  as  his  own,  that  Mr.  Emerson  would  disown 
the  narrator.  When,  therefore,  there  is  placed  at  the  head 
of  this  chapter  one  of  his  own  suggestive  paragraphs;  and 
then,  when  we  read  in  his  essay  that,  in  "opening  a  new 
book,  he  is  quick  to  discover,  from  the  unguarded  devo- 
tion with  which  the  writer  gives  his  motto  or  his  text,  all 
we  have  to  expect  from  him,"  I  am  compelled  either  to 
appeal  to  a  lower  order  of  intelligence  for  my  readers,  or 
to  ask  the  philosopher  to  regard  anecdote,  quotation,  or 
"suction"  as  the  main  business  of  legislative  life,  and  the" 
sweetness  and  ardor  of  the  unoriginal  act  as  the  only 


280  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

excuse  for  any  impatience  at  its  interruption,  and  for  its 
want  of  originality.  The  purport  of  all  which  is,  that 
only  when  the  orator  steals  boldly,  and  uses  as  his  own, 
the  property  of  another,  has  he  the  divine  gift  of  the  ever 
instant  life  !  It  is  the  composition  of  the  new  out  of  the 
old  decomposition.  As  some  one  might  suspect  Congress 
of  unrighteous  appropriation  or  unpleasant  decomposition, 
some  instances  may  be  adduced  of  legislative  suction  un- 
der transcendental  conditions. 

"  I  do  not  know  what  to  do  next,"  said  a  discomfited 
Senator.  "  I  feel  like  the  sailor  at  a  puppet-show,  who, 
when  a  keg  of  powder  exploded  in  some  part  of  the 
building,  and  blew  him  out  of  the  window,  cried  out,  ll 
wonder  what  the  man  will  do  next !'" 

The  story  of  the  fellow  caught  shooting  tame  hogs  has 
been  more  than  once  used  to  express  a  moral.  He  was 
finally  caught.  What  was  his  excuse?  "I'll  shoot  all 
your  hogs  that  come  round  biting  me  this  way  !"  Some- 
times this  has  been  applied  to  the  less  dangerous  animal, 
the  sheep ;  but  the  moral  humor  is  the  same. 

A  Senator  illustrates  the  braggadocio  indulged  in  as  to 
a  certain  harbor,  for  which  appropriations  were  asked,  by 
the  story  of  the  man  who  said  he  had  the  fastest  horse  in 
the  world,  but  he  was  afraid  to  try  him  ! 

During  the  Mexican  debate,  Mr.  Jones,  of  Tennessee, 
related  this  story.  The  application  is  clear:  "Well,  now, 
if  there  were  no  injuries  committed,  no  insults  offered, 
and  no  robberies  and  spoliations  upon  our  citizens,  what 
was  it  that  Mexico  confessed  ?  Why,  she  promised  repa- 
ration for  nothing ;  and,  therefore,  she  had  fully  paid  the 
debt.  This  was  like  the  compensation  the  Indian  made 
to  the  trader  to  whom  he  was  indebted.  An  Indian  call- 
ed upon  a  trader.  '  Sir/  said  the  trader, c  I  have  a  note 


LEGISLATIVE   ANECDOTE — CONTINUED.  281 

of  yours.'  'I  know  it,'  said  the  Indian,  'but  I  have  not 
the  money  to  pay  with  now,  and  I  wish  you  to  wait  a  lit- 
tle. I'll  pay  it  by-and-by.'  '  Very  well,'  said  the  trader, 
'  an  acknowledgment  of  the  debt  is  equal  to  half  pay- 
ment/ He  called  the  second  time,  when  a  similar  collo- 
quy took  place  ;  and  on  calling  the  third  time,  the  Indian 
said  to  the  trader, '  I  owe  you  nothing.  I  have  paid  you 
all  that  I  owe  you.'  '  How  so?'  said  the  trader.  'Did 
you  not  acknowledge  the  debt  the  first  and  second  times, 
and  have  you  paid  me  any  thing  since  that?'  'True,' 
rejoined  the  Indian,  'but  the  first  time  you  said  an  ac- 
knowledgment was  half  pay,  and  surely  the  next  acknowl- 
edgment was  the  other  half!' "  This  was  the  reparation 
we  had  received  from  Mexico,  and  the  joke  helped  to 
make  war. 

A  rich  widow  had  a  pension  claim.  It  was  opposed 
by  Mr.  Clay,  of  Alabama.  She  had  a  house,  she  said ;  but 
it  cost  so  very  much  to  keep  it  up.  Not  unlike  the  Span- 
ish beggar  on  horseback.  When  rebuked  for  begging  on 
horseback,  he  whined,  "  Oh,  senor !  the  greater  cause  to 
beg,  for  have  I  not  my  horse  to  feed  as  well  as  myself?" 

The  Whig  party  was  supposed  to  be  broken  in  1842. 
It  was  likened  to  the  man  who  wished  to  sell  his  horse. 
A  by-  stander  asked  if  the  horse  was  not  spavined  ? 
"  Spavined  !  I  don't  know  what  that  is  ;  but  if  the  horse 
is  any  better  for  being  spavined,  then  he  is  spavined  !" 

A  North  Carolinian,  to  illustrate  the  spasmodic  and 
irrational  character  of  a  certain  debate  on  both  sides, 
narrated  the  story  of  a  witness,  who  was  asked  as  to  an 
old  lady  :  "  I  know  her  general  character.  It  is  general- 
ly believed  in  the  neighborhood  that  she  is  a  woman  un- 
worthy of  common  sense  and  guilty  of  fits." 

My   predecessor,  Dr.  Olds,  told    an    admirable    story 


282  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

about  one  "  Live  Forever  Jones,"  of  Kentucky.  He  was 
a  candidate,  and  brought  an  essay  to  a  friend  for  advice. 
The  friend  read  it  through ;  said  it  was  well  written ; 
"but  he  could  see  no  point  in  it.'7  "Well,  sir,  that's  just 
what  I  want.  If  I  make  a  point,  they  get  me  on  it." 

A  Tennessee  member  once  gave  an  idea  of  the  elas- 
ticity of  politicians  by  the  auctioneer's  praise  of  the  sus- 
penders which  he  was  selling:  that  they  were  short 
enough  for  any  boy,  and  long  enough  for  any  man ! 

Senator  M'Creery,  who  is  unctuous  with  humor,  once 
related  that  a  lawyer  in  his  State,  while  admitting  the 
foreknowledge  of  God  as  a  general  proposition,  did  not 
believe  that  He  could  tell  in  advance  how  a  county  court 
of  Kentucky  would  decide  a  case. 

Mr.  Evarts,  on  the  impeachment  trial,  told  a  pertinent 
story  of  the  old  lady  who  said  if  you  took  away  her  "  to- 
tal depravity,  you  took  away  her  religion." 

General  Butler  related  a  historical  narrative  at  the 
expense  of  the  Indian  Penn  treaty.  It  provided  for  as 
much  land  as  a  man  could  walk  over  in  a  day.  A 
Quaker  was  found  who  walked  four  hundred  miles  in  one 
day! 

"As  to  Andrew  Johnson,  I  feel,"  said  Judge  Lawrence, 
of  Ohio,  "  as  a  man  once  said  of  Jackson,  '  I  don't  wish 
General  Jackson  any  harm,  but  I  shouldn't  care  if  the 
Almighty  took  a  fancy  to  him.' " 

"And  you  say  that  I  can  not,  sir,  as  a  justice  of  the 
peace,  take  jurisdiction  of  slander  cases?"  "  I  said  so," 
said  Senator  Baker.  "Now,  sir,  I  know  I  can;  for  I 
have  done  it !"  Thus  did  the  gallant  Oregon  soldier- 
senator  illustrate  the  difference  between  theory  and  prac- 
tice. 

"  He  was  a  po'orful  preacher.     He  has  pounded  three 


LEGISLATIVE   ANECDOTE — CONTINUED.  283 

pulpits  to  pieces  and  clanged  the  life  out  of  five  Bibles." 
This  was  one  of  Wigfall's  points  to  show  the  hot  seces- 
sion debate. 

General  Butler  apologized  for  a  long  speech  by  the 
remark  of  Charles  II.  when  dying.  He  knew  that  he 
was  an  unconscionable  long  time  dying,  and  apologized 
therefor  to  his  friends. 

To  make  clear  some  of  the  beauties  and  virtues  of 
reconstruction,  Senator  Dixon  repeated  Dr.  Johnson's 
narrative  to  Boswell :  "I  was  passing  a  fish -monger's 
stall,  and  I  saw  him  skinning  an  eel  alive ;  and  he  was 
cursing  the  eel  because  it  would  not  lie  still."  The  dis- 
quieted and  uneasy  South,  and  the  debate  on  its  out- 
lawry, were  the  points  aimed  at  by  the  elegant  and  la- 
mented Senator  from  Connecticut. 

A  Missourian  desired  to  help  a  special  bill,  while  he 
would  not  give  up  a  general  one,  for  the  benefit  of  his 
State.  He  said  :  "  It  reminds  me,  sir,  of  the  case  of  a 
profligate  man  who  went  to  a  respectable  judge,  and 
said,  'The  laws  of  society  are  not  properly  constructed.' 
1  What  is  the  matter  with  them  ?'  said  the  judge.  '  Why, 
you  are  rich,  and  I  am  poor,  and  I  think  we  ought  to 
divide/  'If  I  did  divide  with  you/  said  the  judge,  'at 
the  end  of  six  months  you  will  have  spent  all  your  mon- 
ey. What  will  you  do  then  ?'  '  Why,  divide  again,  of 
course.' "  A  thousand  volumes  on  Agrarianism  or  Com- 
munism could  not  better  express  the  organic  law  of  so- 
ciety. 

F.  R.  S.  was  translated  by  De  Quincey  into  Fellows  Re- 
markably Stupid  ;  for  were  not  the  Fellows  of  the  Royal 
Society  solemn  men,  and  dull  in  conversation  ?  And  so, 
ridiculing  the  ostentatious  mode  of  signing  names  during 
the  war,  General  Schenck  told  this  of  a  foppish  Deputy 


284  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

Quarter  Master  General,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  writing 
after  his  name  "  D.  Q.  M.  G."  Some  wag  wrote  after  it, 
"  D— d  Quick  Made  General." 

An  Ohio  member  once  touchingly  related  how  an  old 
biidge  on  the  Miami  had  been  carried  off  in  a  freshet. 
Bill  Beckett  was  there,  looking  on.  As  he  saw  the 
bridge,  with  fifty  years  of  association  from  rosy  youth  to 
gray  age,  tears  stood  in  his  eyes.  "Ah !  no  wonder," 
said  a  friend  of  Bill's;  "he  was  its  biggest  stockholder." 
This  was  intended  to  show  the  difference  between  senti- 
ment and  selfishness. 

To  give  pith  to  the  eulogy  of  an  elderly  statesman,  this 
was  narrated  of  an  old  dog :  "  This  dog,  you  see,  is  lame, 
blind,  and  deaf,  yet  the  most  valuable  of  all  in  my  pack." 
"  How  is  that?"  "  His  education  was  good,  and  his  sense 
is  unimpaired.  We  only  take  him  out  to  catch  the  scent 
and  put  the  puppies  on  the  track,  and  then  return  him 
to  the  kennel.  He  never  bit  the  hand  that  fed  him,  or 
barked  on  a  false  trail." 

One  member  likens  an  appropriation  for  the  test  of  an 
engine  to  the  Irishman's  rabbit,  which  cost  more  to  cook 
it  than  it  was  worth. 

One  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  stories  was  once  used  to  display 
the  ponderous  points  made  by  an  antagonist.  One  of  the 
President's  neighbors  had  some  heavy  butts  of  logs  on 
his  land.  "They  were  too  infernal  heavy  to  roll,  too 
darned  soggy  to  burn,  and  too  tarnal  tough  to  split ;  so 
he  just  plowed  all  around  them." 

That  was  a  good  story  of  the  man  who  had  a  case 
against  another  man,  and,  looking  into  the  statute,  found 
that  he  could  sue  before  any  justice  of  the  peace.  As  he 
was  himself  a  justice,  he  brought  it  before  himself,  and 
gave  judgment  for  the  defendant,  and  appealed.  The 


LEGISLATIVE    ANECDOTE — CONTINUED.  285 

higher  court  affirmed  the  judgment  below.  This  is  one 
of  Judge  Poland's  points  about  a  Connecticut  justice. 

It  is  the  better  way,  in  a  deliberative  body,  to  give  a 
hint  of  the  story  rather  than  elaborate  it.  "The  gentle- 
man need  not  begin  to  weep  till  the  oven  begins  to  heat," 
was  a  familiar  and  pleasant  allusion  of  Mr.  Scofield,  of 
Pennsylvania ;  or,  rather,  a  reference  to  the  sad  illusion 
of  the  girl  and  her  fanciful  and  crispy  infant. 

Senator  Cowan  once  told,  with  shrewd  application,  the 
story  of  the  Irishman  who,  to  improve  the  breed  of  cattle, 
imported  a  yoke  of  oxen. 

"Are  you  not  conscious  that  you  are  laboring  under  a 
prejudice  against  that  man  ?"  was  one  of  Judge  Collamer's 
happy  narratives.  "  Yes,  sir,  I  think  it  likely.  I  have 
detected  him  stealing  two  or  three  times." 

Another  of  the  judge's  well-applied  though  aged  sto- 
ries is  that  of  the  Irish  proposition  :  first,  that  a  new  jail 
should  be  built  out  of  the  materials  of  the  old  one ;  and, 
second,  that  the  old  one  should  be  kept  good  for  prison- 
ers till  the  new  one  was  finished. 

Apropos  of  this  sort  of  narrative  for  rhetorical  effect, 
it  is  a  marvel  that  spicy  literary  allusions  are  so  seldom 
used  for  illustration  in  Congress.  They  are  quite  infre- 
quent, more  so  than  in  Parliament.  Few  references  are 
made  to  Dickens,  and  rarely  is  there  a  hint  of  Cervantes. 
Judge  Kelley  once  called  Bunsby  to  his  side  to  help  him 
answer  the  question  whether  a  protective  duty  is  a  tax  or 
a  bounty :  "  The  bearings  of  this  observation  lays  in  the 
application  on  it." 

Governor  Washburne,  of  Maine,  once  referred  to  Dick- 
ens in  a  Nebraska  contested  election,  where  Samuel  Wel- 
ler  and  Oliver  Twist  were  recorded  as  voters.  "  I  have 
known  several  persons  whose  surnames  were  Weller  and 


286  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

Twist.  Is  it  possible  that,  among  all  the  Wellers  and 
Twists,  there  are  no  Samuels  or  Olivers  ?  If  so,  why  not 
in  Nebraska,  as  well  as  anywhere  else  ?  There  was  a 
Weller  in  the  Senate,  and  Twists  are  everywhere.  The 
gentleman  himself  is  getting  in  a  twist" 

Mr.  Clay  used  to  quote  from  "Gil  Bias."  In  answering 
a  free  trader,  he  made  a  picture  of  the  hero  going  to  Dr. 
Sangrado.  "All  our  patients  are  dying  with  this  warm 
water  and  blood-letting.  Let  us  change  our  system!" 
"Change!"  Do  you  not  know  that  I  have  written  a 
book,  and  must  preserve  my  consistency?  Sooner  than 
change,  or  write  another  book  to  prove  it  false,  let  no- 
bles, gentlemen,  bourgeois,  men,  women,  children,  and  all 
go — !"  The  Senate  filled  the  profane  and  suggestive 
gap.  Senatorial  waistbands  split ;  dignified  buttons  burst 
off;  and  the  whole  body,  like  Wendell  Holmes's  servant, 
tumbled  in  a  fit  of  fun  ! 


LEGISLATIVE   RETORT   AND    REPARTEE.  287 


XIX. 

LEGISLATIVE  RETORT  AND  REPARTEE. 

"  In  Aristotle,  such  persons  are  termed  tmct£iot  (dexterous  men), 
and  IvroTToi  (men  of  facile  or  versatile  manners),  who  can  easily  turn 
themselves  to  all  things,  or  all  things  to  themselves." — DR.  BAR- 
ROW. 

UNDER  this  head  and  its  motto  may  be  considered 
those  natural  and  ready  responses  which  are  condensed 
by  the  fire  and  hurry  of  debate.  The  quick  fusillade  of 
fun,  the  sudden  turn  of  expression — these  are  repartees. 
They  are  unstudied  and  innocent.  But  the  keenly  barb- 
ed shafts  that  strike  the  white  may  not  be  classed  strict- 
ly with  repartee.  They  are  retorts  and  sarcasms.  They 
are  the  diablerie  of  wit,  not  the  benevolences  of  humor. 
They  are  the  electric  spark  rather  of  the  individual  than 
of  the  whole  body.  It  is  Voltaire  in  the  tribune,  or  Sher- 
idan in  the  play ;  for  the  barb  too  often  wounds,  poisons, 
and  rankles.  A  member,  once  reproached  of  defeat  in 
his  State,  says,  copying  unconsciously  an  old  mot,  "  My 
State  disgraces  me,  but  you  disgrace  your  State." 

A  female-suffrage  orator  in  Connecticut  was  taunting- 
ly asked,  "Would  you  make  a  man  of  your  wife?"  He 
replied,  "I  hope  your  wife  will  make  a  man  of  you." 

It  has  been  abundantly  shown  in  previous  chapterSj 
that  the  best  element  of  the  comic  is  in  the  form,  face, 
and  manners  of  those  who  are  vain  of  these  appearances. 
Such  personalities,  as  Emerson  has  shown,  were  the  butt 


288  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

of  those  jokes  which  are  so  copiously  recounted  in  the 
French  Memoires.  A  tall  Republican  lady  is  called  "  Le 
Grenadier  Tricolore ;"  and  a  thin  lady,  in  compliment  to 
her  skeleton,  is  named  the  "Venus  of  the  Pere-la-chaise." 
But  a  better  dash  of  personal  epigram  was  that  of  the 
son  of  a  rich  tobacconist,  who  was  in  the  English  army. 
For  some  time  his  fellow-officers  were  constant  in  their 
jokes.  One  of  them  was  rude  enough  to  ask  him  what 
his  father  was ;  and  when  he  said,  "A  tobacconist,"  re- 
plied, "Then  I  wonder  he  did  not  make  you  one."  The 
young  cornet,  on  this,  asked  what  the  officer's  father  was  ; 
and  when  he  said,  "A  gentleman,"  replied  in  turn,  "  Then 
I  wonder  he  did  not  make  you  one." 

There  was  a  dark  New  England  day  in  1780.  A  lady 
sent  to  a  divine  to  know  the  cause.  He  returned,  for  an- 
swer, "  I  am  as  much  in  the  dark  as  you  are."  The  lady 
was  totally  eclipsed ;  but  there  was  no  lightning  in  that 
cloud.  It  was  not  retort. 

But  who  was  there  in  America  ever  answered  the  quick 
call  for  retort  like  George  D.  Prentice  ?  He  is  the  initial 
man  in  such  wit.  "Villainy  is  afoot,"  says  Governor  Me- 
dary,  a  rival  editor.  "  Has  the  editor  lost  his  horse  ?" 
retorts  Prentice.  "  Have  I  changed  ?"  says  another. 
"That  depends  on  whether  you  were  ever  honest."  An- 
other remarks  that  Mr.  Clay  is  behind  the  age.  "Then 
the  age  must  be  tail  foremost."  "What  would  you  do, 
madam,  if  you  were  a  gentleman  ?"  "  Sir,  what  would 
you  do  if  you  were  one  ?" 

These  are  specimens  of  the  spicy  answer,  of  which  ex- 
amples are  neither  dull  nor  rare  in  Congress.  Once, 
when  the  Calhoun  and  Van  Buren  rivalry  existed,  and 
Calhoun  was  presiding  in  the  Senate,  with  Jackson  at 
the  White  House,  General  Noble,  in  alluding  to  those  re- 


LEGISLATIVE   RETORT   AND   REPARTEE.  289 

lations,  said,  "I  tell  you,  Mr.  President,  the  little  magi- 
cian will  spoil  your  dish  with  the  old  hero ;  he  is  as  cun- 
ning as  a  serpent,  and  as  harmless  as  a  dove."  "The 
Senator  will  confine  himself  to  the  subject."  "Which  sub- 
ject?" "The  one  before  the  Senate."  "I  am  trying  to 
do  so.  I  see  but  one  subject  before  the  Senate;  the  oth- 
er is  at  the  White  House."  "  The  Senator  will  take  his 
seat."  "As  I  was  saying,  the  little  magician — "  "  The 
Senator  was  directed  to  take  his  seat"  "  So  I  did,  but 
the  Chair  did  not  expect  me  to  sit  there  the  balance  of 
the  session." 

The  question  of  excuse  for  absence  was  before  the 
Senate.  The  proviso  was,  "  Unless  such  absence  of 
Senators  is  occasioned  by  their  sickness,  and  that  of  wife 
or  child."  But  said  Senator  Badger,  "What  of  a  Senator 
like  General  Shields,  who  has  neither  wife  nor  child — a 
single  man,  and  yet  not  a  single  being  in  the. world  by 
whose  indisposition  he  can  profit  ?"  This  was  the  pure 
gold,  struck  out  of  the  crystal,  and  melted  into  sterling 
wit. 

Senator  Simmons  had  a  passage  at  arms  about  arms 
with  Jefferson  Davis.  "I  hope,"  said  General  Davis, 
"the  Senator  did  not  understand  me  as  arraigning  his 
common  sense  ?"  Mr.  SIMMONS.  "  I  did.  I  know  of  no 
other  who  uses  the  article  here,  and  to  whom  the  remark 
could  apply." 

"My  colleague  has  been  at  his  usual  work  of  fighting 
windmills,"  said  a  member  from  Massachusetts.  "  I  was 
fighting  my  colleague,"  replied  the  ready  Eli  Thayer. 

"No  gentleman  has  a  right  to  insult  another,"  said 
Judge  Collamer.  "Grant  it,"  said  Jefferson  Davis. 
"And  he  is  no  gentleman  if  he  does,"  retorted  the  Judge. 

When  the  tariff  was  pending,  Mr.  Vallandigham,  who 
13 


2QO  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

was  watching  the  protectionists  of  Pennsylvania  in  full 
chorus  on  the  floor,  cried  out,  "  Is  not  every  furnace  in 
Pennsylvania  in  full  blast  ?" 

"I  do  not  know  that  it  is  a  reproach  to  the  military 
gentleman  from  Iowa  that  he  is  not  a  lawyer."  "  I  must 
regard  it  so,"  replied  General  Curtis,  "  as  I  had  the  hon- 
or of  graduating  at  the  law,  and  practicing  some."  This 
was  subtle  and  neat. 

Governor  Cleveland  made  one  of  the  best  retorts 
of  the  sprightly  Congress  of  1852.  At  that  time  parties 
were  together  and  good-natured.  The  Free -soil  ele- 
ment was  peeping  from  the  Orient,  but  was  not  then  the 
rosy-fingered  aurora.  While  a  great  number  of  states- 
men were  giving  in  their  adhesion  to  the  antislavery 
movement,  Governor  Cleveland  lifted  up  his  splendid 
form  and  voice,  and  said,  all  too  bitterly,  "  If  slave  buyers 
and  sellers  go  to  hell,  it  seems  to  me  there  should  be 
some  other  word  coined  to  describe  the  place  where 
Northern  men,  who  uphold  the  practice,  and  especially 
professed  ministers  of  the  Gospel,  should  go — "  Mr. 
VENABLE  (interrupting).  "Will  the  gentleman  tell  me 
what  has  been  done  with  the  money  you  made  in  Con- 
necticut by  selling  negroes  kidnaped  from  Africa  ?"  Mr. 
CLEVELAND.  "  If  we  made  any,  we  invested  it  in  com- 
mon-school education,  to  enable  us  to  send  our  boys  of 
thirteen  to  instruct  your  men  of  twenty-five  in  North  Car- 
olina." This  was  the  bitter  retort,  all  too  bitter  for  relish. 

"Why  suspend  this  work  on  the  Treasury  building?" 
It  was  answered:  "There  are  quicksands  under  it." 
"Ah!"  said  another,  "there  are  quicksands  under  the 
administration." 

"  You  may  vote  us  down,  but  we  shall  live  to  fight  an- 
other day."  To  which  Judge  Douglas  quoted  the  old 


LEGISLATIVE    RETORT   AND    REPARTEE.  29 1 

lines,  "  He  who  fights  and  runs  away — "  Whereupon 
ex-President  Wilson  made  the  best  retort  of  his  long 
career,  "  We  shall  not  run  away  to  live ;  we  shall  live  to 
run."  It  was  piquant  and  prophetic. 

"  What's  before  the  House — does  the  gentleman  know  ?" 
says  the  irate  Speaker.  "I  am,"  said  the  member.  The 
House  and  Speaker  laugh. 

"  I  move  to  extend  a  railing  outside  of  the  seats." 
"  How  far  outside  ?"  asks  the  demure  Dawes. 

"  Shall  we  not  adjourn  from  Friday  till  Monday  ?"  said 
Senator  Hamilton.  "No,  no,"  said  several  Senators. 
Mr.  HAMILTON.  "Gentlemen  say  '  No,  no;'  I  say*  Yes, 
yes/  "  Mr.  EDMUNDS.  "But  you  can  not  vote  twice." 

A  member  is  urging  the  widening  of  the  bronze  door- 
way, so  as  to  make  more  commodious  the  promenade 
from  the  House  to  the  Senate.  "  Does  the  gentleman," 
said  Mr.  Dawes,  who  may  then  have  been  cultivating  an 
enlarged  bronze  for  the  Upper  House,  "find  his  prog- 
ress to  the  Senate  obstructed  by  the  narrowness  of  the 
way  ?" 

"  What  proportion  of  sugar  is  added  to  high  wine  when 
it  becomes  rectified  ?"  Mr.  HAMLIN.  "  I  am  no  chemist. 
I  do  not  drink." 

"There  will  be  some  swearing  about  this  legislation 
not  set  down  in  the  bill,"  said  a  member,  as  to  the  repeal 
of  the  iron-clad  oath. 

Once  a  question  was  facetiously  raised  on  the  Tax  Bill 
by  Judge  Holman.  "  Do  tools  and  instruments  mean  the 
books  of  lawyers  ?"  The  repartee  was  :  "  The  words  ex- 
empt implements  in  actual  use,  which  lawyers'  books  or- 
dinarily are  not." 

"I  would  like  to  know,"  a  member  asked  of  the  Utah 
Delegate,  "whether  men  do  not  occasionally  disappear 


2Q2  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

there?"  "I  suppose  they  do.  Do  they  not  disappear 
everywhere?"  asked  the  witty  Delegate. 

"  Has  this  bill  been  based  on  the  supposition  that  the 
franking  will  be  or  will  not  be  abolished?"  is  fiercely 
asked.  Defiantly  it  is  answered, "  It  has."  Laughter. 

"Who  are  the  men  who  own  bonds  and  swear  they 
don't  ?"  was  asked  of  General  Butler.  "  Oh,  go  and 
count  the  stars  in  the  sky  and  the  sands  on  the  sea-shore, 
and  you  can  get  at  the  who  !" 

Mr.  Dawes  once  suggested  a  monument  to  Governor 
Swan's  memory  for  certain  reforms  he  had  projected. 
Governor  Swan,  with  his  usual  savoir  faire,  begged  him 
not  to  hurry  the  monument. 

A  Pennsylvanian  was  opposing  an  appropriation  for 
the  Ohio  River.  Said  Mr.  Stevenson,  of  Ohio,  "  It  is  a 
public  work."  "  But,"  responded  Mr.  Dickey,  "  the  gen- 
tleman thinks  the  country  begins  and  ends  on  the  Ohio 
River."  "Why,  sir,"  said  Stevenson,  "it  rises  in  Penn- 
sylvania." Mr.  DICKEY.  "  The  only  good  thing  about  it." 

"Will  that  cut  off  debate  on  the  merits?"  said  a  mem- 
ber to  the  Speaker.  "  No ;  nor  on  its  demerits,"  said 
Mr.  Blaine. 

"  What  does  the  Senator  want  ?"  was  asked.  "  To  put 
a  head  on  this  bill  ?"  "  Then  we  are  working  at  the  wrong 
end,"  said  Senator  Hamlin. 

They  were  talking  of  the  system  of  compulsory  pilot- 
age. It  is  a  State  system.  "  They  have  to  be  boarded," 
said  one.  "They  board  the  vessel  and  the  vessel  boards 
them,"  said  General  Garfield.  "  I  put  four  pilots  in  irons 
for  refusing  to  pilot  Farragut,"  said  General  Butler.  "Ah, 
that  was  compulsory  pilotage,"  said  Mr.  Potter. 

A  member  anxious  to  take  up  the  tariff,  in  which  the 
duty  on  coffee  was  involved,  said,  "  There  is  a  cry  of  ago- 


LEGISLATIVE    RETORT   AND    REPARTEE.  293 

ny  from  the  coffee  interest."  "Then  it  needs  settling," 
said  a  Senator.  "On  vib&t grounds W  said  another. 

A  member  asks  to  insert  "rock"  before  "salt"  in  the 
tariff.  He  fails  :  "  You  split  on  that  rock,"  says  a  mem- 
ber. 

"My  colleague,"  said  General  Banks,  "has  deceived 
me  again ;  he  would  deceive  the  very  elect."  "  Of  course," 
said  Mr.  Dawes,  to  the  defeated  colleague, "  that  does  not 
include  you." 

In  discussing  about  improvements  in  Washington,  Mr. 
Cameron  said  :  "  Talk  about  parks  and  lungs.  The  city 
is  all  lungs."  "  So  it  appears  here"  said  Edmunds,  with 
a  chuckle. 

"  Sir,"  said  a  Southern  member,  "  sal  soda  enters  into 
the  composition  of  soap ;  and  soap,  sir,  is  used  by  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  country."  "Or  ought  to 
be,"  said  the  jocose  Job  Stevenson,  of  Ohio,  and  the 
House  became  lachrymose  with  laughing. 

A  member  intimated  that  Mr.  Sumner,  after  his  dis- 
placement from  the  Committee  of  Foreign  Affairs,  was 
politically  dead.  "  If  he  is  dead,"  said  Mr.  George  F. 
Hoar,  of  Massachusetts — more  full  of  State  than  of  party 
pride — "then  the  corpse  buried  the  undertaker."  This 
passed  for  ready  repartee,  for  Sumner  was  quite  alive 
then. 

Ohio  desires  a  bridge  elevated,  as  it  is  only  forty  feet 
high.  "The  river  is  a  gorge,  and  rises  sixty  feet  from 
low  to  high  water,"  argues  Senator  Sherman.  "  Then," 
said  some  one,  "the  fault  is  in  the  river  and  not  the 
bridge."  Why  did  not  some  practical  legislator  move  an 
amendment  to  lower  the  river  ? 

Speaking  on  a  general  appropriation  bill,  "I  hope," 
said  a  Senator, "  that  the  removal  of  the  capital  will  not 


294  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

be  debated  on  this  bill."  "Why  not?"  said  Edmunds; 
"  has  not  every  other  question  been  debated  ?" 

The  Indian  service  is  before  the  Senate,  and  the  local 
Christian  agencies.  "  I  have  met  no  Christians  in  Neva- 
da," said  Oregon.  "You  did  not  associate  with  our  best 
people,"  said  Nevada. 

"The  gentleman  is  throwing  sand,  not  dust,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  people."  "  Not  sand,  but  shot."  Mr.  Speak- 
er Elaine  always  clicked  a  hair-trigger. 

"Will  the  gentleman  report  a  harmonious  bill  on  whis- 
ky?" "The  bill,"  said  Schenck,  "will  be  harmonious; 
but  I  can  not  say  that  for  the  House  when  they  hear  it." 

There  is  a  canny  sort  of  fun  in  Cameron's  homely 
thrusts.  Judge  Thurman  was  interested  in  a  debate. 
Cameron,  who  wanted  an  executive  session,  suddenly  in- 
terrupts. The  polite  and  irate  Ohioan  is  a  thousand 
times  obliged  to  the  Senator  for  interrupting  him  in  the 
middle  of  a  sentence.  CAMERON.  "  It  will  give  the  Sen- 
ator more  time  to  reflect  on  the  rest  of  it."  The  secret 
session  is  ordered,  with  genial  temper. 

"  If  the  Senator  is  firing  at  the  flock,  it  is  a  safe  way 
of  firing,"  said  Casserly.  "One  bird  is  hit,  at  any  rate," 
rejoined  Edmunds. 

The  navy  is  anchored  in  Congressional  waters.  "  What 
the  Senator  says  shows  that  he  is  a  thorough  seaman." 
"  Or  a  good  deal  at  sea,"  responded  Edmunds. 

"  It  is  presumed  that  we  have  a  quorum,  as  we  have 
done  business."  "Ah,  but  will  presumption  overcome  a 
record  ?"  asked  the  lawyer  and  Senator  Howe. 

"The  Senator  says  that  neither  war  nor  secession  can 
take  a  State  out  of  the  Union."  This  was  from  Senator 
Patterson  to  Senator  Hendricks.  "  Suppose,"  he  pur- 
sued, "  all  the  male  voting  population  of  South  Carolina 


LEGISLATIVE    RETORT   AND    REPARTEE.  295 

were  to  die,  where  would  the  Government  be  ?"  Mr. 
HENDRICKS.  "That,  sir,  is  rather  an  exhaustive  ques- 
tion." 

"Perhaps  the  Senator  attributes  the  coming  of  the  lo- 
custs to  the  same  faithlessness  as  the  collection  of  the 
whisky  tax,  eh  ?"  "  There  is  certainly  a  strong  analogy." 
This  was  an  unexpected  acquiescence  from  Garrett  Davis. 

"  The  gentleman  is  mistaken,"  said  Mr.  Dawes ;  "  I  do 
not  allude  to  any  irregularity.  These  bad  contracts 
seem  to  occur  very  regularly" 

"  Is  it  in  order  to  charge  the  House  with  howling  ?" 
Mr.  SPEAKER.  "  It  is  consistent  with  the  fact,  but  is  not 
in  order." 

A  man  was  convicted  for  counterfeiting  Confederate 
currency  by  one  of  the  military  courts.  "A  man  so  fool- 
ish," thought  Thaddeus  Stevens,  "  ought  to  be  convicted 
and  punished  too."  It  was  answered  to  this, "  If  all  fools 
are  to  be  judged  by  military  courts,  they  have  a  wide  ju- 
risdiction." This  legal  repartee  was  on  the  grand  de- 
bate for  personal  liberty,  in  1865,  by  Winter  Davis,  of 
Maryland. 

After  several  interruptions  from  Senator  Edmunds, 
which  Senator  Casserly  took  good  -  humoredly,  finally 
Casserly  turned  upon  Edmunds,  and  said,  "Will  my 
friend  permit  me  to  ask  him  a  question  ?"  <£  Certainly." 
"  Then,"  said  Casserly,  "  I  ask  my  friend,  why  not  allow 
me  to  go  on?"  Mr.  EDMUNDS.  "Yes,  or  go  off."  But 
the  Celtic  race  won ;  and  Edmunds  determined  to  pur- 
sue the  advice  of  Paul  to  Timothy,  "  But  foolish  and  un- 
learned questions  avoid,  knowing  that  they  do  gender 
strifes." 

Hickman,  of  Pennsylvania,  called  Vallandigham,  of 
Ohio,  severely  to  account  for  having  a  rebel  camp  named 


296  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

after  him  in  Kentucky,  when  Vallandigham  turned  sharp- 
ly, and  said,  "  Is  there  not  a  town  in  Kentucky  by  the 
name  of  Hickman  ?"  The  effect  was  electrically  humor- 
ous. 

"  Were  one  to  rise  from  the  dead,  would  it  convince 
the  gentleman  ?"  "Well,"  said  Mr.  Stiles,  of  Pennsylva- 
nia, "  I  would  as  soon  take  it  from  a  dead  man  as  from 
my  colleague.'' 

"  Suppose,"  said  Senator  Carpenter,  beginning  elabo- 
rately, "two  men  should  sit  down  right  here  to  play  a 
game  of  chess,  and — "  Senator  HOWE  (interposing).  "I 
suppose  it  would  be  wrong."  Carpenter  was  posed. 

"  There's  nothing  in  the  question  disagreeable."  "Ah ! 
then  it's  the  answer  you  object  to  !" 

"Will  the  gentleman  allow  me  a  moment?"  "I  yield 
every  thing  to  you  but — time,"  said  Butler. 

"  I  would  not  go  on  with  the  bill  retaliating  upon  rebel 
prisoners,"  said  Mr.  Sumner.  "You  would,"  answered 
gruff  Ben  Wade,  "if  you  were  in  prison." 

"We  do  not  want  any  more  assurance  to  that  effect 
from  the  other  side."  "  You  have  enough  assurance  al- 
ready," said  that  other  side. 

"A  case  of  this  kind  came  up  last  year."  "Oh,  last 
year  is  played  out."  This  lacked  refinement.  It  smack- 
ed of  the  stump,  but  it  was  effective  for  a  laugh. 

"Has  any  committee  of  this  House  the  paternity  of 
this  bill?"  The  SPEAKER.  "The  chair  thinks  not." 
"  Then,  Mr.  Speaker,  it  is  an  orphan,"  said  Pomeroy,  of 
New  York.  But  the  House  shed  every  thing  but  tears 
over  the  orphaned  bill. 

John  P.  Hale  once  made  a  retort  that  filled  the  gal- 
leries with  laughter  by  quoting  ironically  a  text  from  Sec- 
ond Samuel,  on  Judge  Douglas :  "Absalom  said,  more- 


LEGISLATIVE    RETORT   AND    REPARTEE.  297 

over,  Oh,  that  I  were  made  judge  in  the  land  !"  He  was 
equally  happy  on  Wigfall,  who  had  insisted  on  secession 
and  that  Texas  was  out.  He  called  him  the  Senator  of 
the  late  State  of  Texas.  When  Wigfall  protested,  he 
called  him  the  late  Senator  from  Texas. 

It  was  a  railroad  grant.  "  Where  is  all  this  to  lead  ?" 
exclaimed  Washburne.  "  To  the  Pacific  coast,"  said  Gar- 
field.  "  To  the  bottom  of  the  treasury  rather,"  was  the 
prompt  rejoinder. 

"They  may  use  any  power  to  stop  the  cholera,"  said 
Chandler.  "  What !  martial  law  ?  I  would  rather  have 
the  cholera,"  said  Governor  Anthony. 

"  This  is  whipping  the  devil  round  the  stump,"  said  a 
member.  "  No  matter,  if  you  can  only  hit  him,"  said 
Lynch,  of  Maine. 

"  If  the  Senate  table  my  amendment,  they  would  lay 
the  Ten  Commandments  on  the  table,"  said  a  Senator. 
"  That  is  where  they  ought  to  be,"  said  Edmunds,  "  so 
that  we  could  consult  them  all  the  time." 

General  Schenck  was  pressing  a  revenue  bill.  Mr. 
Wood  was  criticising  it.  The  latter  thought  some  pro- 
visions ought  to  be  inserted  to  insure  common  sense  and 
consistent  decisions  by  the  executive  officers.  General 
Schenck  replied  that  the  committee  had  left  that  to  the 
Almighty  and  to  the  President  who  selects  the  officer. 
Mr.  WOOD.  "  We  would  prefer  to  take  our  chances  with 
the  Almighty."  This  would  be  a  gem  of  purest  ray,  were 
it  not  overspiced  with  the  prevailing  irreverence. 

Judge  Drake  was  arguing  on  the  Southern  Pacific 
Railroad.  "  The  building  of  roads  South  on  a  uniform 
five-foot  gauge  was  a  part  of  the  scheme  of  rebellion.  It 
was  to  prevent  Northern  cars  from  going  on  Southern 
roads."  "  What !"  exclaims  Carpenter,  "  does  the  Senator 

13* 


298  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

think  that  there  is  more  probability  that  a  gauge  of  five 
feet  will  commit  treason  than  one  of  four  and  a  half?" 

These  illustrations  may  not  adequately  give  the  es- 
sence of  this  frequent  and  pungent  repartee  and  retort ; 
but  they  confirm  an  epigram  as  old  as  the  Latin  of  Mar- 
tial, that  a  quick  wit  is  found  in  sudden  chances. 

"  O  quantum  est  subitis  casibus  ingenium  !" 

There  is  no  forum  where  the  happy  first  thought  and 
the  seizure  of  the  sudden  chance  are  so  readily  appre- 
ciated as  in  Congress. 


SUGGESTIVE  AND  EVASIVE  HUMORS  OF  LEGISLATION.    299 


XX. 

SUGGESTIVE  AND   EVASIVE   HUMORS    OF   LEGISLA- 
TION. 

"  Who  mix'd  reason  with  pleasure,  and  wisdom  with  mirth." 

GOLDSMITH. 

THERE  is  a  certain  kind  of  wit  or  humor,  too  evanes- 
cent and  exquisite  for  superficial,  prompt,  and  general 
apprehension.  Large  assemblies  do  not  quickly  catch  it. 
If  Addison  had  spoken  in  Parliament  what  he  makes 
Roger  de  Coverley  say  in  the  Spectator — that  he  would 
have  given  her  (his  mistress,  or  his  country)  a  coal-pit  to 
keep  her  in  clean  linen,  and  that  her  finger  should  have 
sparkled  with  a  hundred  of  his  richest  acres,  the  heavy 
yeomanry  of  the  Commons  would  have  looked  at  him  in 
daft  amazement.  There  is  too  much  hidden  in  such  a 
recondite  fancy  for  the  ordinary  mind.  Its  very  prepen- 
sive  prettiness  and  precariousness  prevent  any  sting  or 
stimulus.  Yet  how  suggestive  is  such  wit !  For  exam- 
ple, in  a  legislative  way  : 

"The  swamp  lands,"  said  Senator  Merrill,  "require  an 
artesian  well  to  find  the  water."  It  was  a  dexterous  hit 
at  the  fraudulent  mode  of  conveying  the  best  lands  to  the 
States  under  the  Federal  donation. 

On  the  question  of  artesian  wells  in  the  Territories  a 
piquant  discussion  arose.  A  gentleman  proposed  to  al- 
low distilleries  in  the  same  district  to  modify  the  water. 
Besides,  it  was  hinted  that  the  legislation  was  unusual,  as 
the  West  was  unaccustomed  to  water. 


300  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

"Am  I  not  in  order  ?"  it  is  asked.  "  Not  at  this  time 
of  night." 

"  This  bill "  (for  a  whisky  tax)  "  will  not  hold  water." 
It  was  a  humorous  plea  for  a  better  bill. 

That,  too,  was  quite  a  suggestive  point,  and  one  which 
members  caught  in  advance,  when  a  member  described 
the  friends  from  home,  who  came  to  Washington  for 
office.  They  stay  two,  three,  or  six  months,  waiting  till 
they  have  spent  all  their  money.  Then  —  what  next? 
[A  laugh.]  They  call  on  a  representative  of  the  people. 
[A  general  laugh.]  What  would  such  a  point  be  without 
the  hilarious  and  suggestive  parenthesis  ? 

The  wit  of  Thaddeus  Stevens  had  this  quality.  It 
hinted,  perhaps,  more  than  he  meant.  Unlike  his  wit 
was  that  of  the  Addisonian  method ;  or  that  of  Webster 
and  Corwin,  which  was  jeweled  in  the  hilt,  and  never  car- 
ried blood  away  on  its  blade.  Not  so  with  the  suggest- 
ive wit  of  Thaddeus  Stevens.  His  retorts  riled ;  his 
quiet  question  quenched  his  opponent.  It  is  said  that  a 
needle  under  the  microscope  will  show  ragged  edges. 
Doubtless  if  the  microscope  were  magnified  sufficiently, 
the  needle-point,  so  smooth  and  acute  to  the  eye,  would 
show  jagged  crags,  Alpine  peaks,  and  abysmal  gorges; 
but  Nature  is  infinite  in  her  exquisite  craft.  The  sting 
of  a  bee  is  as  smoothly  keen  under  the  microscope  as 
the  needle  is  to  the  naked  eye.  This  was  the  sting  of 
Thaddeus  Stevens.  His  was  the  sting  of  the  honey-bee, 
and  sometimes  that  of  the  wasp  or  adder;  for  though  he 
had  much  gentleness  in  his  nature,  he  was  not  careful  of 
consequences.  Or,  to  change  the  figure,  the  nest  of  this 
Parliamentary  falcon  was  lined  with  softness ;  the  thorns 
(to  draw  from  a  picture  of  Wordsworth)  keeping  guard 
outward,  and  only  wounding  the  aggressor.  Thaddeus 


SUGGESTIVE  AND  EVASIVE  HUMORS  OF  LEGISLATION.    301 

Stevens  was  a  strange  compound  of  the  sunbeam  and  the 
lightning. 

"Who  will  take  me  up  in  their  strong  arms  when  you 
two  mighty  men  are  gone  ?"  said  he  to  the  two  officers 
who  carried  him  in  his  chair  across  the  Capitol  grounds. 
This  was  nectarine  fun.  "Ah,  John,"  said  he  to  his 
friend  Hickman,  as  he  was  dying,  "  it  is  not  my  appear- 
ance, but  my  disappearance,  that  troubles  me."  This, 
too,  is  a  spiced  dainty.  But  when  he  said  to  a  trouble- 
some member,  who  was  ever  uncertain  as  to  his  course 
and  vote,  and  who  was  asking  liberty  to  pair,  "  I  do  not 
object  to  your  pair,  but  pair  with  yourself,"  he  displayed 
no  honeyed  humor.  When  he  said,  "  Must  we  forgive 
these  traitors  as  they  forgive  us  ?  why,  they  do  not  for- 
give any  body  on  earth,"  he  was  not  of  amnesty  all  kind. 
A  member  asks  him,  "Are  there  not  sixty-four  half-gills  in 
a  gallon  ?  If  I  am  not  correct,  the  Chairman  of  Ways 
and  Means  will  correct  me."  "I  need  not  tell  you. 
You  have  counted  it  a  hundred  times."  This  was  in  his 
happy  mood,  and  perhaps  more  characteristic.  And  in 
the  same  vein,  when  once  the  question  of  taxing  lager- 
beer  came  up,  he  humorously  defended  lager.  "  Its  effects 
are  eccentric  and  amusing,"  he  said.  "Many  a  night 
I  have  looked  out  of  my  house  and  seen  the  honest  men 
who  drank  it  stumble  against  the  fence.  Sometimes  they 
knocked  it  down.  I  should  therefore  designate  its  effect, 
not  as  intoxicating,  but  rather  as  exhilarating."  Once  he 
remarked  in  a  speech  that  he  was  not  well ;  and  hence 
he  was  diffuse.  "A  man  always  is  diffuse  when  feeble, 
and  feeble  when  diffuse."  This  had  the  playfulness  of 
the  lamb,  with  the  point  of  one  of  Martial's  epigrams. 
So  has  this :  An  appropriation  is  up  for  a  sewer  in  Wash- 
ington. "  It  is  out  of  order,"  said  one.  "  The  sewer  is," 


302  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

said  Stevens,  "but  not  the  proposition."  His  sarcasm 
was  not  always  thus  curbed.  "I  do  not,"  said  he,  "give 
the  gentleman  my  censure  or  advice ;  the  one  is  beyond 
my  jurisdiction,  and  the  other  would  do  him  no  good." 
This  was  not  a  little  sarcastic ;  but  not  more  so  than  the 
next,  "The  style  of  these  Congressional  biographies  is 
as  various  as  the  gentlemen  who  wrote  them."  Or,  again, 
"  The  anecdotes  of  the  gentleman  are  so  startling  that 
if  he  did  not  tell  them,  they  would  be  incredible."  This 
was  one  of  Mr.  Stevens's  mockeries.  He  once  withdrew 
the  word  "  parasite,"  and  substituted  "  satellite  ;"  but  he 
did  it  with  a  venomous  reference  to  the  little  body  re- 
volving about  the  greater.  "Who  signed  that  paper? 
Is  it  signed  at  all?"  he  demanded  fiercely  of  Vallandi-. 
gham.  "  They  didn't  make  their  marks,"  was  sarcastical- 
ly answered.  "And  never  will !"  retorted  Stevens.  His 
diabolic  wit  shone  with  the  feu  d'enfer  when  he  met  James 
Brooks  in  a  hot  encounter.  Mr.  Brooks  had  said,  in  re- 
sponse to  Stevens,  very  bitterly,  "  There  are  three  gates 
in  London  renowned  for  peculiar  architecture  :  Newgate, 
of  the  prisons  ;  Cripplegate,  of  the  cripples  ;  Billingsgate, 
of  the  fish-women.  The  gentleman  has  studied  his  vo- 
cabulary in  all  three."  "There  is  one  gate  which  the 
gentleman  will  enter,"  retorted  Stevens,  "  that  I  will  try 
to  avoid." 

In  contrast  with  this  sardonic  humor,  let  me  recall  one 
of  the  most  playful  speeches  ever  listened  to.  It  was  a 
short  speech  of  Judge  Holman's.  It  is  remembered  for 
a  humor  iridescent  and  fluttering.  His  subject  was,  "  The 
economic  plants,"  as  they  had  been  termed,  raised  under 
"  the  glass  structure  to  make  elegant  bouquets  for  the  de- 
lectation of  officials."  Is  it  too  dainty  a  simile  to  say 
that  the  judicial  mind  on  that  occasion  reminded  me  of 


SUGGESTIVE  AND  EVASIVE  HUMORS  OF  LEGISLATION.    303 

the  trochilidcz  ?  What  are  they  ?  or,  rather,  "What  is  it?" 
It  is  to  America  what  the  sun-bird  is  to  Europe.  It  is  an 
airy  sprite, "  barrin'  it's  a  bird."  It  has  the  lustre  of  to- 
paz, emerald,  and  ruby  on  its  plumery.  It  revels>  as  did 
my  friend's  raillery,  amidst  tropical  blossoms  which  ri- 
valed those  jewels  in  hue.  Like  the  humming-bird,  from 
fuchsia  to  japonica,  from  sunny  heliotrope  to  night-bloom- 
ing cereus, 

"  Each  rapid  movement  gave  a  different  dye," 

as  the  judge,  with  the  barbed  and  viscid  tongue  of  the 
hummer,  drew  the  mischievous  insects,  with  the  honey, 
from  the  flowery  depths.  He  so  illustrated  his  theme 
that  the  House  was  tickled  into  a  vein  of  honest  reform. 

EVASIVE   HUMOR. 

One  of  the  proofs  of  genuine  humor  is  often  found  in 
the  manner  of  adroitly  avoiding  the  point.  It  is  a  part 
of  the  study  of  an  English  minister  to  parry  a  question. 
We  have  no  cabinet  in  our  Congress  to  be  interrogated, 
but  we  have  the  American  or  habitual  disposition  to  in- 
terrupt with  a  question  "just  here."  It  is  a  part  of  the 
daily  legislative  routine.  It  frets  the  callow  and  timid 
member  until  he  gets  "  the  hang  of  the  House."  I  re- 
member that  in  Proctor  Knott's  first  speech  he  betrayed 
a  fretful  impatience,  which,  however,  soon  subsided  into  a 
lucid  stream  of  humor.  When  interrupted,  he  cried  out, 
"  I  believe  if  some  members  had  been  present  at  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount,  they  would  have  asked  their  Saviour 
to  yield  for  a  question." 

No  man  had  a  better  knack  than  General  Banks  for 
parrying  these  queries  and  making  a  diversion.  His  re- 
ply to  a  Mississippi  member  in  1854  is  felicitous,  not  only 


304  WHY  WE   LAUGH. 

for  the  grandiose  manner  which  the  general  always  com- 
mands, but  for  the  affected  wisdom  of  the  answer.  "  I  am 
asked  whether  the  black  race  is  equal  to  the  white  ?  I 
answer  :  this  can  only  be  determined  by  the  absorption  or 
disappearance  of  one  or  the  other ;  and  I  propose  to  wait 
until  the  respective  races  can  be  properly  subjected  to 
this  philosophical  test  before  I  give  a  decisive  answer." 
This  would  elicit  laughter  from  a  legislature  of  owls.  So 
non-committal  a  member  on  the  then  prevailing  topic 
was  naturally  preferred  as  Speaker  of  the  House,  which 
was  of  doubtful  majority  on  either  side. 

During  the  same  struggle,  General  Banks  was  called 
upon  to  explain  his  past  career  and  record.  Rising  to 
the  occasion,  with  a  Junius-like  pithiness,  he  said  :  "  I  am 
tired  of  explaining.  Must  a  man  take  one  half  of  his  life 
to  explain  the  other  half?" 

A  question  comes  up  as  to  the  loyalty  of  a  Southern 
member  on  a  contested  seat.  How  does  his  friend  avoid 
the  ugly  issue  for  him  ?  The  answer  is,  "  He  was  a  tim- 
id, not  a  traitorous,  man.  Perhaps  he  did  not  believe — I 
do  not  know  his  religious  sentiments,  only  he  does  not 
belong  to  my  church,  the  Presbyterian,  and  perhaps  he 
did  not  believe  that  whatever  is  to  be,  must  be."  The 
evasion  was  palpably  ludicrous,  if  not  damaging. 

"  Let  me  assure  you  that  this  income-tax  is  one  of  the 
hardest  in  the  whole  calendar — "  "To  collect,"  inter- 
rupted the  House  leader,  Schenck,  changing  the  tenor  of 
the  debate. 

It  is  known  that  North  Carolina  was  discovered  by  the 
Celts  about  the  tenth  century.  Mr.  Waddell,  of  the  Wil- 
mington district,  has  written  two  papers  on  the  topic — 
one  seriously  to  prove  the  assertion,  and  another  in  a  hu- 
morous vein.  In  the  latter,  from  certain  Celtic  peculiari- 


SUGGESTIVE  AND  EVASIVE  HUMORS  OF  LEGISLATION.    305 

ties  among  the  red  men,  as  carrying  a  war  club  (to  wit,  a 
shillalah,  etc.),  he  argues  the  existence  of  the  descendants 
of  the  British  isles  among  our  Indians.  Nor  is  it  alto- 
gether a  myth  or  a  joke.  Affidavits  are  produced  of  men 
who  heard  and  understood  Celtic  words  among  the  In- 
dians of  the  North-west  about  the  time  of  our  Revolution. 
In  February,  1871,  an  extra  appropriation  was  asked  for 
the  Auckarees,  Gros  Ventres,  and  Mandans,  because,  said 
the  ex-Secretary  of  the  Interior,  Mr.  Harlan,  "  they  are 
red-haired,  blue-eyed,  and  a  great  many  of  them.  They 
never  kill  white  men,  and  desire  schools."  This  was  all 
very  pretty  and  plausible.  Then  the  diversion  or  avoid- 
ance began.  "  If  they  are  not  Indians,  why  appropriate  ? 
If  the  Indians  are  peaceable,  why  spoil  them  ?  Some  In- 
dians scalp  a  few  whites  to  make  a  fuss  and  be  bought  off. 
War  and  contracts  are  in  the  appropriation."  Then  and 
thus  the  facetiously  facile  Edmunds  :  "  Give  these  Indians 
more  money  because  their  hair  is  red  ?  Never,  sir !  It  is 
an  unconstitutional  and  colorable  distinction.  No  repub- 
lican country  should  tolerate  it."  Then,  after  touching  up 
the  ruddy  blondes  of  the  Senate,  Senators  Stewart  and 
Conkling,  the  vote  was  taken,  but  the  increase  was  not 
allowed.  Besides,  the  red-haired  red  men  had  thus  saved 
the  new  amendment,  which  does  not  allow  discrimination. 
Some  men  are  greatly  vexed  at  the  smile  of  others 
while  they  are  talking.  One  Senator  is  in  a  rage  because 
another  smiles  to  himself  at  an  idea  the  first  had  express- 
ed. The  idea  was  that  the  Indians  would  hear  of  the  de- 
bate, and  act  accordingly.  When  fiercely  attacked  for  the 
smile,  he  calmly  rejoined  that  it  was  only  caused  by  a 
fancy  of  his  own.  He  thought  he  saw  "  Lo  !  the  poor  In- 
dian "  reading  the  Globe!  It  was  piling  the  Pelion  of  in- 
jury upon  the  Ossa  of  wrong  to  that  race. 


306  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

Some,  however,  never,  when  on  the  floor,  lose  their  ad- 
mirable temper.  Interruptions,  like  the  bowlders  in  the 
torrent,  only  make  the  song  of  the  stream  more  musical. 
Mr.  Stockton  is  a  model,  as  will  be  seen  by  his  remarks  : 
"  They  have  asked  you  for  bread,  and  you — "  Mr.  WAR- 
NER. "Allow  me  to  ask — "  Mr.  THURMAN.  "Oh,  do 
not  interrupt !"  Mr.  STOCKTON.  "The  country  will  nev- 
er know  —  the  Senate,  you,  Mr.  President,  posterity,  the 
world,  will  never  know — how  that  sentence  would  have 
ended  had  it  not  been  for  this  unfortunate  interruption." 

"  What  are  these  fifteen  extra  Capitol  police  for  ?"  "  To 
keep  the  people  from  stealing  the  bronze  doors  and  car- 
rying off  the  dome/7  said  Dawes  ;  but  the  laugh  was  brack- 
eted thus,  [great,]  when  he  further  and  thus  divertingly 
answered  the  argument,  that  they  were  necessary  for  the 
funerals  of  members  :  u  If  we  are  not  more  earnest  in 
economy,  our  funerals  will  be  attended  to  elsewhere,  and 
without  charge." 

A  chaplain  is  nominated.  It  is  asked  :  "  What  are  his 
politics  ?"  It  is  thus  deftly  dodged  :  "  He  has  none.  He 
is  a  Christian." 

Joseph  R.  Chandler,  of  Philadelphia,  used  his  humor 
in  graceful  terms  of  avoidance ;  as  when  he  referred  to  a 
union,  based  on  improper  objects.  The  coalition  of  Pi- 
late and  Herod  was  delicately  cited  as  an  unfavorable 
instance  of  harmony  of  interests,  otherwise  hostile.  But, 
hostile  as  they  had  been,  they  agreed  on  a  certain  point, 
the  result  of  which  is  better  found  elsewhere  than  quoted 
in  Congress. 

We  were  taxing  petroleum.  It  was  called  the  poor 
man's  light,  by  a  Pennsylvanian  interested  in  the  product. 
"Were  there  no  poor  men  before  this  light  was  discov- 
ered ?  No  light  from  fish-oils  ?"  "  That,"  said  the  Penn- 


SUGGESTIVE  AND  EVASIVE  HUMORS  OF  LEGISLATION.    307 

sylvanian,  Mr.  Scofield,  eluding  the  point,  "  that  was  the 
Might  of  other  days.'" 

A  non-committal  member  was  likened  to  a  vessel, 
which  sailed  so  completely  in  the  eye  of  the  wind  that 
one  could  not  tell  whether  he  was  a  seventy-four  gun- 
ship,  or  a  Baltimore  clipper  with  black  sides  and  an  Af- 
rican cargo. 

General  Houston  upset  the  gravity  of  Senate  and  gal- 
lery on  a  debate  about  the  navy.  He  actually  whistled 
the  boatswain's  call  in  his  speech.  He  was  so  berated 
for  it  that  one  day  he  arose  seriously  and  said  that  he 
was  sorry  he  had  ever  learned  to  whistle.  This  confes- 
sion and  avoidance  was  his  only  apology. 

The  Senate  was  once  invoked  not  to  act  like  the  man 
who  cursed  Jay's  treaty.  Mr.  Walton,  one  of  the  signers 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  asked  the  man  his 
objection  to  the  treaty.  He  said  it  was  an  unconstitu- 
tional measure.  "Well,  my  friend,  have  you  read  it?" 
"  No,  sir ;  do  you  suppose  I  would  read  an  unconstitu- 
tional document  ?" 

"Wherein,  then,  do  my  colleague  and  myself  differ?" 
asked  Vallandigham  of  Corwin.  "  I  differ  from  my  col- 
league on  every  question,  except  original  sin,"  said  Cor- 
win ;  and  the  House  caught  the  infection  of  the  general 
temper  which  had  such  a  comprehensive  concord,  so 
adroitly  discursive. 

"  Have  you  faro-banks  in  your  State  ?"  "  Yes,  sir,  and 
they  are  the  least  dishonest."  "Are  they  banks  of  de- 
posit?" "They  are."  "The  gentleman  should  speak  feel- 
ingly." 

These  retorts  are  akin  to  the  epigrammatic  argumen- 
tation and  irony  which  belong  to  the  next  chapter. 


308  WHY  WE   LAUGH. 


XXI. 

LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS— EPIGRAM,  ARGUMENT,  AND 
IRONY. 

"  An  epigram  should  be,  if  right, 
Short,  simple,  pointed,  keen,  and  bright, 

A  lively  little  thing. 
Like  wasp  with  taper  body,  bound 
By  lines,  not  many,  neat  and  round, 
All  ending  in  a  sting." 

THE  word  "  epigram  "  is  a  general  term.  The  transla- 
tion of  the  Latin  definition  prefixed  to  this  chapter  indi- 
cates its  limitations  and  its  functions.  It  comprehends 
not  alone  many  instances  of  retort  and  repartee  already 
given,  but  is  included  within  every  category  of  humor  or 
wit.  It  appears,  with  its  keen  and  lively  qualities,  as  a 
winged  prismatic  wonder,  and  a  stinging,  perilous  omni- 
presence, even  in  argument  and  burlesque,  and  always  in 
irony  and  satire.  It  originally  meant  a  terse  inscription. 
The  Greeks  carved  epigrams  on  their  temples  as  they 
carved  statues  for  the  niches.  With  perfect  taste,  and 
with  an  eye  to  proportion  and  beauty,  they  utilized  and 
concentrated  the  genius  of  their  language  to  blazon  the 
glories  of  their  history.  The  dead  were  honored,  and  the 
heroic  eulogized  by  epigrammatic  memorial.  Grecian 
thought  endured  the  longer,  because  of  the  chaste  brevi- 
ty of  the  gemmed  vehicle.  Like  the  Pentelic  statue,  it 
was  so  nearly  pure  and  nude  that  the  scant  attire  only 
aided  the  idea  it  hardly  covered  and  did  not  conceal. 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS — EPIGRAM,  ARGUMENT,  IRONY.    309 

As  there  was  a  simple  refinement  in  the  epigram,  its 
pointed  elegance  left  an  impression,  not  unlike  that  of 
apothegm,  parable,  satire,  wit,  and  humor.  Hence  its  sig- 
nification has  been  enlarged  by  use  and  time.  New 
meaning  has  been  given  to  the  term  in  later  eras.  Its 
office  now  is  to  surprise  and  delight.  It  ridicules  vanity 
and  vulgarity.  It  checks  impudence  and  arrogance.  It 
corrects  bad  taste  and  manners.  It  has  the  sanction  of 
the  best  writers  and  the  holiest  of  religions. 

For  instance,  when  an  epigram  hints  at  a  prudent  mat- 
rimonial match,  where  the  bridegroom  chose  the  bride 
like  old  plate,  not  for  the  fashion,  but  for  the  weight ;  or 
at  another  marriage,  where  the  man  married  the  woman 
when  she  was  quite  petite,  and  after  she  had  grown  to 
weigh  three  hundred  pounds,  was  accused  of  Big-amy ;  or 
a  candle-thief,  when  caught,  was  reproached  for  stealing 
what  must  needs  come  to  light ;  when  it  is  said  that  trea- 
son never  prospers,  because  when  prosperous  it  is  not 
treason ;  when  a  bad  man  is  called  a  cheat  if  he  should 
be  honest ;  when  a  lover,  who  had  plighted  an  eternal 
vow,  afterward  found  his  chosen  one  changed  in  face  and 
mind,  and  called  it  perjury  to  continue  to  love  her;  when, 
in  verse  and  prose,  the  old  play  on  the  phrase  "  all  flesh 
is  grass"  grows  into  the  fat  man's  load  of  hay;  or  the 
man,  bitten  by  his  horse,  who  followed  the  Scriptural  def- 
inition and  took  his  master  for  grass,  these,  and  other  fa- 
miliar examples  when  versified,  have  been  called  epigram- 
matic. But  they  have  other  qualities,  and  appear  as  well 
in  the  oratory  of  the  forum  as  in  the  distich  of  the  ver- 
sifier. 

Sometimes  this  wit  consists  in  a  quaint  commingling 
of  opposites  as  incongruous  as  "  lutes  and  lobsters,  seas 
of  milk  and  ships  of  amber."  It  is  a  species  of  argumen- 


310  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

tation.  It  belongs  to  the  reductio  ad  absurdum.  It  is 
epigrammatic.  One  of  the  most  eloquent  members,  Mr. 
Fitch,  of  Nevada,  used  it  frequently.  Referring  to  the 
Indian  appropriations  in  this  vein,  he  said,  "  What  a  mix- 
ed assortment  of  Quakers  and  blankets,  saw-mills  and 
school-books,  to  send  to  vicious  and  un appreciative  sav- 
ages !" 

"  Those  who  know  but  little  of  finance,"  said  a  Senator, 
"  talk  a  great  deal,  those  who  know  a  great  deal  talk  but 
little,  and  those  who  know  all  about  it  do  not  talk  at  all." 

Again,  it  was  remarked,  "The  minority  of  the  Senate 
is  small ;  in  the  House  it  is  respectable  in  numbers;  in 
the  Senate,  in  character." 

John  P.  Hale,  when  badgered  to  explain,  once  remark- 
ed :  "I  never  said  that  all  the  Democrats  were  rascals ; 
only  that  all  the  rascals  were  Democrats." 

An  original  paraphrase  for  a  "  pork  thief"  was  once 
made  by  a  Virginian,  "  Scoundrels  who  had  plenty  of  pork 
in  the  winter  and  no  hogs  in  summer." 

"Let  the  Senate  clear  the  galleries."  "You  will  be 
fortunate,"  said  the  witty  Wigfall,  "  if  the  galleries  do  not 
clear  the  Senate."  This  was  in  the  days  when  Benjamin's 
musical  voice  allured  Southern  men  and  women  to  the 
Senate. 

"As  this  man  has  been  standing  on  one  leg  in  our 
service  for  ten  months,"  said  Benton,  "every  gentleman 
who  has  got  two  legs  ought  to  stand  up  for  this  man." 
The  pension  was  passed. 

Mike  Walsh  sometimes  struck  out  an  antithesis.  "  I 
would  not  barter  the  practical  knowledge  I  have  learned 
in  lumber  and  ship  yards  for  all  the  Latin  of  ancient 
Rome.  I  would  rather  speak  sense  in  one  language 
than  nonsense  in  fifty." 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS — EPIGRAM,  ARGUMENT,  IRONY.    31 1 

Colonel  Benton  humorously  described  the  use  the  Dig- 
ger Indians  made  of  a  long,  slender  stick,  with  a  metal- 
lic hook  at  the  end  of  it.  They  catch  lizards  with  it,  for 
food.  "  What  a  godsend  for  hooks/7  he  argued,  "  is  the 
telegraph-wire.  It  gives  life  to  the  Digger,  but  death  to 
the  lizard." 

LOGICAL   HUMOR. 

This  rhetoric  has  often  the  cogency  of  pointed  and 
humorous  logic  and  keen  irony.  It  is  too  brief  to  be 
eloquent;  and  yet  we  can  not  get  enough  of  it.  It  is 
like  the  peddler's  excuse  in  Boucicault's  play  of  "  The 
Shaughraun,"  where  the  fiddler  relates  how  he  avoided 
the  pledge  not  to  drink  more  than  a  thimbleful.  There 
was  no  other  thimble  in  the  house  except  a  tailor's  thim- 
ble, and  it  never  got  full ! 

Was  that  not  a  pleasing  argument,  made  by  a  member 
under  arrest,  after  a  call,  that  the  Constitution  provided 
"  that  members  shall  be  privileged  from  arrest  while  go- 
ing to  and  returning  from  the  sessions  of  the  House  ?" 

"  The  man  is  to  be  hung  if  he  does  the  act,  and  to  be 
hung  if  he  does  not,"  said  Senator  Doolittle,  in  reference 
to  certain  State  laws  against  the  Federal  fugitive  law. 
"  If  so,  it  does  not  make  any  difference  to  him.  Then, 
in  a  certain  case,  the  State  law  is  void."  "And  the  hang- 
ing, too,"  said  Mr.  Benjamin.  "But  the  hanging  would 
be  a  certainty,  and  not  void  for  uncertainty."  And  the 
lawyers  had  their  smile  at  the  legal  quiddity. 

Judge  Douglas  once  made  a  humorous  argument 
against  secession.  "  Here  you  deny  the  right  to  coerce, 
and  here  by  its  side  is  a  proposition  to  buy  Cuba  for 
three  hundred  millions.  Would  it  not  be  a  brilliant 
achievement  to  buy  Cuba,  let  her  secede,  then  re-annex 


312  WHY    WE   LAUGH. 

herself  to  Spain,  and  sell  her  out  at  half  or  double  price, 
according  to  the  gullibility  of  the  purchaser  ?" 

The  polar  expedition  asks  an  appropriation.  Some 
one  demands  a  separate  vote  on  the  north  pole.  It  is 
an  argument  against  remote  enterprise. 

A  member  ridiculed  a  lot  of  abstract  resolutions  against 
rebellion  by  moving  a  resolution  to  abolish  the  rebellion. 

"  Old  age,"  said  Butler,  "  is  honorable,  but  voracious," 
as  he  referred  to  the  longevity  of  army  rations,  thus 
avoiding  the  ad  misericordiam,  to  kill  the  bill. 

An  appropriation  is  up  for  a  custom-house.  It  is  said 
that  more  has  been  spent  on  it  already  than  would  build 
two  at  certain  other  points.  Then  Mr.  Toombs  asked, 
quaintly,  but  logically,  how  they  could  set  off  one  abuse 
by  another  ?  It  reminded  him  of  a  case  of  slander,  where 
a  set-off  had  been  pleaded.  The  plaintiff  had  spoken 
worse  of  the  defendant  than  the  defendant  of  the  plaint- 
iff. His  point  was,  that  all  abuses  are  natural  allies ! 

That  was  no  irrelevant  logic  which  drove  into  an  ex- 
treme the  abstractions  of  a  Virginian  of  the  old  school. 
He  was  about  to  die  ;  and  in  his  last  moments  he  begged 
not  to  be  buried  at  the  public  expense,  as  he  was  satis- 
fied it  was  unconstitutional. 

"  Why,  who  is  the  author  of  institutions  ?  It  is  He  who 
sitteth  upon  the  circuit  of  the  heavens ;  and  before  him 
all  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth  are  as  grasshoppers.  If, 
then,  he  has  established  certain  relations  between  grass- 
hoppers of  one  color  and  grasshoppers  of  another  color, 
be  assured  they  will  stand  !"  Thus,  with  ironic  logic  and 
phraseology,  Mr.  Eli  Thayer  discussed  sovereignty  and 
grasshoppers,  irrespective  of  color  or  race.  Again,  in  the 
same  debate,  he  said,  "  I  am  told  by  my  colleague  that 
this  is  the  ancient  policy  of  the  Government.  It  is  not  so 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS— EPIGRAM,  ARGUMENT,  IRONY.     313 

old  as  Satan,  not  so  old  as  Sin,  the  daughter  of  Satan. 
It  is  old  enough  to  die."  John  Stuart  Mill  has  many 
pages  to  demonstrate  the  fallacy  which  this  epigram  re- 
futes. 

"It  is  a  grave  question  whether  a  dead  man  can  re- 
sign. His  duty  is  to  be  resigned."  This  was  one  of  the 
argumentative  waggeries  of  Mr.  Hale  on  a  legal  point. 
It  arose  on  Henry  Clay's  resignation,  which  was  present- 
ed after  his  decease  and  the  appointment  of  his  succes- 
sor. Not  satisfied  with  invading  the  realm  of  poesy  to 
call  some  bird  from  the  shadowy  land,  to  answer  the 
question  whether  they  resign  there  or  not,  the  orator  call- 
ed the  ghost  of  departed  Denmark,  and  put  the  question 
to  that  grisly  personage  : 

"  Oh,  answer  me ! 

Let  me  not  burst  in  ignorance  !  but  tell, 
Why  thy  canonized  bones,  hearsed  in  death, 
Have  burst  their  cerements  ?" 

Of  all  the  debates  which  are  distinguished  by  the  facile 
ad  absurdum,  spiced  with  quaint  allusion,  roving  fancies, 
pithy  points,  pretty  unexpectednesses,  and  dexterous  sup- 
plements of  sense,  this  argument  about  the  shadowy  realm 
evoked  the  most  humor.  "  More  merry  tones  the  passion 
of  loud  laughter  never  shed."  If  the  clever  man  is  one 
who  can  readily  devise  and  adapt  means  to  an  end,  who 
has  contrivance  and  execution  instinctive  and  ready;  if, 
as  Emerson,  in  his  recent  lucubration  on  the  comic,  con- 
tends, the  essence  of  all  jokes  is  an  honest  halfness  and 
a  break  of  continuity  in  the  intellect ;  if  comedy  consists 
in  looking  with  considerate  good  nature  at  every  object 
in  existence  aloof,  as  a  man  might  look  at  a  mouse,  com- 
paring it  with  the  Eternal  Whole  ;  if,  before  the  Ideal  and 
the  True,  yawning  discrepancies  appear,  to  give  us  the 

14 


314  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

pleasant  spasms  of  laughter;  if,  in  fine,  as  our  transcend- 
entalist  teaches,  the  perception  of  humor  is  the  balance- 
wheel  in  our  metaphysical  structure,  the  essential  element 
of  a  fine  character,  the  tie  of  sympathy  and  pledge  of  san- 
ity, making  its  own  welcome  and  leveling  all  distinctions, 
even  of  religion  and  the  tomb — then  John  P.  Hale,  Fal- 
staffian  in  size,  and  Voltairian  in  wit,  has  seldom  had  a 
parliamentary  peer. 

There  are  ears  so  callous  to  logic,  so  shut  against  the 
Circean  strains  of  rhetoric,  and  so  impervious  to  the  tele- 
graphic impetuosity  of  epigram,  that  they  can  not  be  en- 
tranced by  any  device  except  that  of  an  illusory  illustra- 
tion. A  tinsel  metaphorical  wand  or  a  tickling  trope  of 
straw  has  more  potency  than  all  the  predicables  of  the 
school-men.  For  example  :  Since  the  repeal  by  England 
of  the  duty  on  wool,  it  was  argued  in  Congress  that  there 
were  an  increased  production  and  price.  The  fashion  of 
answering  this,  by  a  protectionist,  was  amusing :  "  With- 
in the  last  five  years  they  have  put  cow-catchers  on  the 
front  of  locomotives  j  and  since  then,  instead  of  fifteen 
miles  an  hour,  as  on  the  old  flat-bar  rail,  the  train  goes 
thirty,  forty,  sixty  miles  an  hour  ;  therefore  the  cow-catch- 
er increases  the  speed !"  The  humor  is  not  in  the  falla- 
cy, but  in  the  unique  illustration,  which,  with  many,  takes 
the  form  of  reasoning.  The  fallacious  poison  escapes 
detection  in  the  pleasing  dilution  of  imagery. 

Sugar- duties  produce  an  acid  debate.  Judge  Trum- 
bull  is  arguing  against  the  doctrine  that  the  higher  the 
duty,  the  lower  the  price  ;  and  illustrated  it  by  a  transpar- 
ency in  a  torchlight  procession  out  in  a  Western  town,  on 
a  rainy  night  and  a  muddy  road.  A  tall,  gangling  sort 
of  man,  with  his  pantaloons  tucked  in  his  boots,  carried 
the  transparency.  On  it  was  the  motto,  "  The  deeper  the 


LEGISLATIVE   HUMORS — EPIGRAM,  ARGUMENT,  IRONY.     315 

mud,  the  dryer  the  ground  !"  The  absurd  11011  sequitur 
was  equally  transparent  with  the  humor. 

"Every  thing  is  unconstitutional  with  some,"  said  a 
member.  "This  measure  is,  anyhow,"  replied  an  oppo- 
nent. "Oh,  no,"  said  the  other;  "the  Supreme  Court 
has  decided  otherwise."  "But,"  was  the  rejoinder,  "the 
Supreme  Court  is  unconstitutional !" 

"I  do  not  ask  for  the  doubt  of  a  star-gazer  looking 
through  a  telescope,  when  he  is  hesitating  whether  a  cer- 
tain thing  in  the  moon  is  an  elephant,  a  lion,  or  a  lizard : 
I  speak  of  reasonable  doubts."  This  was  metaphysical 
physics. 

IRONICAL    HUMOR. 

"  How,"  said  Mr.  Winthrop,  "  have  we  extended  our 
limits  in  Oregon  by  ceding  away  half  of  it  to  England  ?" 
This  is  as  exact  as  geometry. 

One  of  the  sharpest  pieces  of  humorous  ironical  logic 
was  that  which  argued  for  a  subsidy  to  steamships  under 
the  constitutional  clause  to  "make  rules  concerning  capt- 
ures on  land  and  water."  The  proposition  would  capt- 
ure eight  hundred  thousand  dollars  per  annum  on  land 
from  the  Treasury,  to  be  used  on  the  water !  Another 
point  was,  that  the  steamers  were  deep-draught.  They 
drew  thirty-three  feet — from  the  national  treasury ! 

There  was  a  proposition  to  lay  gas-pipes  to  the  Dis- 
trict Penitentiary.  Mr.  Hale  jocosely  hinted  that  a  good 
many  men  find  their  way  there  without  being  lighted  by 
gas. 

Governor  Vance,  of  North  Carolina,  once  proposed  that 
there  should  not  be  paid  on  the  Capitol  extension,  for  la- 
bor or  materials,  more  than  twice  as  much  as  the  cost 
elsewhere. 


316  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

Mr.  Hale  once  remarked,  with  pleasant  equivoque,  that 
if  he  said  "the  distinguished  Senator  from  Mississippi,"  no 
one  would  know  which  of  the  two  he  meant.  On  another 
occasion  this  was  applied  to  Banks  and  Butler :  "  The 
distinguished  general  from  Massachusetts,  if  any  body 
can  tell  which  one  it  is." 

There  was  a  debate  on  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and 
the  question  of  color  was  mooted.  "  Is  it,"  said  a  mem- 
ber, "  a  disqualification  on  a  Virginia  hustings  for  a  man 
to  boast  of  having  the  blood  of  Pocahontas  ?" 

An  eccentric  speaker  once  made  this  point  of  half  hu- 
mor and  half  logic  :  "  Whoever  answers,  *  I  am  perfect,' 
condemns  himself.  There  is  none  perfect  except  the 
long-faced  kin  of  that  immaculate  old  man  in  the  Testa- 
ment, who,  with  a  long  robe  on,  thanked  God  he  was  not 
like  other  men  !" 

"  What !"  exclaims  a  member,  "  appropriate  this  sev- 
enty-five thousand  dollars  for  sending  cotton-seeds  to 
Maine,  and  dandelions  and  johnny-jump-ups  all  around  ! 
But  will  the  seeds  ever  produce  their  like,  and  appear 
above  ground  ?  Why,  my  tobacco-seeds  came  up  mul- 
leins!" 

I  had  the  honor  once  to  propose  to  inflate  the  curren- 
cy by  moving  to  stamp  all  ones  as  twos,  all  fives  as  tens, 
etc.,  whereat  a  brilliant  member  intimated  that  I  was  a 
noun  with  a  profanatory  prefix.  Yet  was  I  not  endeav- 
oring to  save  the  cost  of  printing  new  notes  and  all  the 
risks  of  counterfeits  ? 

Senator  Morrill,  of  Vermont,  once  made  himself  a  sim- 
ilar target  by  moving  to  a  railroad  grant  that  any  body  in 
any  State  should  have  power  to  build  a  railroad  from  any 
one  spot  to  another,  and  have  all  the  lands  not  claimed 
by  any  other  railroad.  This  was  seriously  pronounced 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS — EPIGRAM,  ARGUMENT,  IRONY.    317 

simply  ridiculous,  in  fact,  impossible  —  really  out  of  the 
question. 

Judge  Van  Trump,  of  Ohio,  desired  General  Schenck 
to  answer  whether  he  would  follow  into  other  invest- 
ments the  interest  on  the  new  bonds  by  exempting  it 
from  tax.  "  Suppose  a  man,"  said  Schenck,  in  reply,  "  has 
a  quantity  of  whisky,  on  which  whisky  there  is  now  levied 
a  tax,  and  he  swaps  it  off  for  a  horse,  you  do  not  continue 
to  tax  that  horse  as  whisky."  The  verbose  and  compli- 
cated query  of  the  dignified  judge  was  simplified  amaz- 
ingly, and  the  House  enjoyed  the  whisky  and  rode  the 
horse. 

The  Civil  Rights  Bill  is  up,  and  so  is  Mr.  Sumner. 
The  Pacific  coast  is  aroused,  and  so  is  the  Chinese  topic. 
A  motion  is  made  to  keep  the  Celestials  out  of  the  bene- 
faction of  the  bill.  Then  the  large-hearted  and  large- 
bodied  Senator  M'Creery  moves,  and  his  motion  compre- 
hends the  argument.  It  is  that  the  act  shall  not  apply 
to  persons  born  in  Asia,  Africa,  or  any  of  the  isles  of  the 
Pacific,  nor  to  Indians  born  in  the  wilderness.  And  yet 
with  what  grace  did  this  liberal  Senator  last  Congress  re- 
ceive his  colored  highness  Kalakaua  in  the  Capitol !  We 
served  together  on  the  reception  committee,  but  we  had 
white  gloves  and  mouchoirs,  and  thus  saved  our  colors. 

Mr.  Wood  once  made  a  startling  point  humorously  as 
to  the  duty  on  Cuba  sugar.  It  was  that  his  Republican 
brethren  were  offering  a  premium  on  slave  labor.  He 
vociferated  for  tellers,  amidst  a  roar  of  logical  fun,  "  to  see 
who  were  the  friends  of  slavery."  There  was  sweetness 
in  the  House  all  day. 

Senator  Stockton  used  to  strike  a  happy  track  of  easy- 
going and  ironic  naivete,  as  when  he  once  pictured  the 
effects  of  a  repeal  of  the  frank  on  the  distribution  of 


318  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

speeches.  "He  was  honored,"  he  said,  "in  listening  to 
the  speeches,  and  taking  advantage  of  their  grace  of  man- 
ner as  well  as  their  beauty  of  diction  ;  but  when  he  was 
taken  away,  ah,  what  a  consolation,  in  his  declining  years, 
to  be  enabled  to  lay  down  the  grand  masters,  whose 
footsteps,  etc.,  in  the  corridors,  etc.,  resound,  etc.,  and 
take  up  the  speeches  of  such  Senators  as  Nye  and  Car- 
penter !" 

"Again,"  said  Judge  Drake,  derogating  from  the  utility 
of  the  Globe,  "  at  what  price  is  the  Government  to  save 
these  untold  millions,  when  no  longer  shall  go  down 
through  the  streams  and  rivulets  of  the  Globe  to  the  pres- 
ent and  future  generations  the  eloquence  of  Senators ! 
Sir,  the  price  is  too  great  for  such  a  deprivation." 

"  When  a  man  dies  in  office  his  like  can  never  be  found 
again  !"  said  a  Celtic  Senator,  ironically. 

"This  iron  was  detained  by  what  may  be  called  the 
act  of  God — the  lake  froze  and  the  increase  of  duty  ac- 
crued. Let  it  be  relieved !"  "  Oh  no,"  said  Ross,  of 
Illinois,  "as  the  Almighty  is  on  the  side  of  the  Govern^ 
ment,  and  not  of  the  railroads,  we  ought  to  take  advan- 
tage of  it." 

A  more  innocent  species  of  humor  was  displayed  upon 
a  dispute  of  boundary.  New  York  once  had  an  interest 
in  Vermont.  Vermont  had  to  pay  New  York  forty  thou- 
sand dollars  before  she  was  admitted  as  a  State.  "  It  is 
the  impression  in  Vermont,"  said  General  Banks,  in  a 
quizzical  way,  "that  this  payment  was  the  foundation  of 
New  York's  prosperity." 

Mr.  Senator  Tipton,  arguing  ironically  for  permanency 
in  the  officers  of  the  Government,  intimated  that  he  would 
carry  the  idea  so  far  that  when  occasionally  one  should 
die,  he  would  bury  him  in  a  vault  under  the  building,  in 


LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS — EPIGRAM,  ARGUMENT,  IRONY.    319 

order  that  the  outside  and  greedy  world  should  not  know 
that  a  vacancy  had  occurred  in  the  inside. 

"The  gentleman  so  declares  for  economy  that  the 
wheels  of  the  universe  must  be  stopped  because  they 
consumed  too  much  grease."  This  was  one  of  Mr.  Don- 
nelly's good  and  not  illogical  hits  upon  the  frugal  Mr. 
Washburne. 

It  was  proposed  to  send  naturalization  papers  to  Eu- 
rope in  advance  of  emigration,  to  be  used  on  arrival. 
This  was  saying  one  thing  and  meaning  another.  It  was 
irony;  and  at  whose  instance,  and  to  whose  injury,  Gen- 
eral Schenck  must  answer. 

In  the  same  vein  it  was  proposed  by  Senator  Saulsbury 
to  amend  the  Constitution  so  as  to  remove  all  distinction 
of  color,  or,  failing  that,  that  there  should  be  but  one  col- 
or. He  would  compromise  on  blue.  It  was  instanced 
that  when  swine  were  neither  black  nor  white,  they  were 
of  that  cerulean  hue.  It  was  also  proposed  by  similar 
reasoning  to  abolish  "sex."  Then  Congress  could  give 
its  whole  attention  to  a  blue  and  sexless  people,  without 
so  many  intricate  problems  to  harass.  A  shrewder  piece 
of  masked  meaning  was  that  of  a  Republican  member 
who  proposed  that  the  blacks  exclusively,  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  should  have  an  election  to  decide  whether 
or  not  in  their  opinion  whites  should  vote. 

A  member  is  speaking ;  he  is  ruled  out  of  order ;  he 
is  seated.  Then  a  wag  moves  to  "extend  his  time,"  to 
wit,  the  time  of  his  continuance  in  his  seat.  This,  of 
course,  is  a  delicate  piece  of  irony,  and  fills  the  definition 
of  that  ill-natured  word ;  for  does  not  the  Greek  root  of 
the  word  indicate  a  censorious  sort  of  wit,  and  imply  sim- 
ulation and  dissimulation  ? 

These  instances  suggest  that  the  American  Legisla- 


320  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

ture,  like  the  American  everywhere  else,  is  estopped  by 
no  subject,  when  his  sense  of  humor  is  aroused.  Wher- 
ever there  is  a  loud  promise  and  a  poor  performance ; 
whatever  is  out  of  place  and  time ;  whatever  deranges 
plans  and  disturbs  calculations ;  whenever  there  is  a 
break  in  logical  or  sentimental  continuity ;  whenever  any 
thing  appears  fragmentary  or  abortive ;  whenever  there 
is  any  thing  mean,  skulking,  or  delinquent ;  whenever 
dignity  is  opinionative,  dumpish,  or  diabolical ;  whenever 
good  principles  are  espoused  by  faulty  and  false  folks ; 
and  whether  the  subject  be  serious  or  mirthful,  scientific 
or  superficial,  the  American  will  have  his  jibe  and  joke, 
and  his  mercurial  temper  overflows  at  once  with  its  per- 
ception. 


LEGISLATIVE    BURLESQUE.  32! 


XXII. 

LEGISLATIVE  BURLESQUE. 

"Men — plugless  word- spouts,  whose  deep  fountains  are  within 
their  lungs."— OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 
"It  pleases  by  extravagancy." — HAZLITT. 

IT  is  said  that  no  one  can  be  eloquent  whose  thoughts 
are  abrupt,  insulated,  capricious,  and  non- sequacious. 
This  is  affirmed  by  De  Quincey  and  Coleridge.  They 
regarded  separate,  or  fractional,  ideas  as  so  discontinu- 
ous as  to  break  the  relation  of  manifold  ideas  and  their 
mode  of  evolution  from  each  other;  and  hence,  as  a  con- 
sequence, the  smooth,  rolling  flow  of  expression  is  want- 
ing. Without  this,  eloquence  is  absent.  The  mere  splin- 
terings  of  phrase  or  image  fail  to  throw  the  deep  suffu- 
sions of  color  and  the  masses  of  mighty  shadow  which 
make  up  the  picture  and  soul  of  oratory.  Wit  and  rea- 
son are  too  solitary  and  flashing,  epigram  and  repartee 
are  too  fragmentary  and  sententious,  for  the  copiousness 
and  opulence  of  rhetoric.  Eloquence  may  be  fleeting 
also;  but  it  is  not  impatient  of  immediate  effects  :  it  can 
afford  to  wait  for  the  applause  and  crown  which  popular 
appreciation  gives,  as,  with  voice  and  gesture,  metaphor 
and  passion,  the  artistic  genius  of  the  forum  rises  to  the 
height  of  his  great  argument ! 

Even  in  burlesque  we  find  a  species  of  logical  humor; 
but  it  gives  occasion  for  more  of  that  redundancy  which 
belongs  to  eloquence.  Although  it  is  reckoned  in  the 

^ 


322  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

lower  rank,  yet  it  is  more  useful  and  delightful  than  the 
aggravating  retort.  The  easy  repartee,  the  babbling  gos- 
sip, the  prattling  puerility,  which  too  often  pass  current 
for  "good  humor,"  are  not  comparable  with  burlesque. 
Not  one  ray  of  light,  but  a  whole  orb  sometimes,  glows 
with  a  diffusive  splendor,  from  the  contrast  which  bur- 
lesque weaves  between  the  subject  and  the  manner  of 
treating  it. 

On  a  proposition  to  send  black  and  white  children  to 
the  same  school,  Mr.  Senator  Norwood  hit  off  the  project 
in  a  spreading  eloquence  quite  enjoyable  :  "  He  proposes 
to  capture  them  with  a  lasso,  drag  them  humanely  to  the 
same  school-room,  tie  them  on  the  same  forms,  lash  their 
arms  together  to  hold  the  same  book,  fix  their  eyes  on 
the  same  page,  make  their  eyeballs  stationary,  and  then, 
by  some  patent  process  as  yet  unknown  to  any  one  ex- 
cept the  inventor  of  this  exquisite  machinery  for  the  prop- 
agation of  knowledge  and  peace  among  men,  to  wind  up 
their  brains  like  eight-day  clocks,  and  set  their  tongues, 
like  pendulums,  in  motion,  to  tick  out  learning  in  harmo- 
nious measure." 

How  musically  expansive  was  Senator  M'Creery  on 
the  currency  speech  of  Senator  Morton  !  "  He  began 
his  voyage  amidst  the  convulsions  of  revolution,  circum- 
navigated the  globe,  visiting  England,  Germany,  France, 
and  Spain,  and,  more  fortunate  than  Captain  Cook,  he 
entered  the  ports  of  redemption  and  reconstruction  with 
flying  streamers,  under  cloudless  skies,  and  impelled  by 
pleasant  breezes  !" 

As  early  as  1869  a  member  made  this  distended  and 
burlesque  but  pious  appeal  in  behalf  of  the  red  man  : 
"Let  an  honest  man  be  sent  out  to  see  that  the  Indians 
get  what  we  appropriate ;  and  if  we  can  not  find  such  a 


LEGISLATIVE    BURLESQUE.  323 

man,  let  us  appeal  to  the  Almighty  to  send  one  down 
from  the  bright  azure  regions  above." 

When  General  Nye  eloquently  remarked  that  the  God- 
dess of  Liberty  had  her  home  in  the  mountains  of  Ne- 
vada, Governor  Hendricks  pricked  his  swollen  balloon 
by  remarking,  "Quite  a  solitary  residence  for  the  lady." 
Nye  rejoined  that  Liberty  was  a  mountain  nymph;  that 
the  flag  when  it  went  down  elsewhere  would  find  its  bar- 
ricade in  the  mountain  fastnesses,  where  our  people  in- 
hale liberty  in  the  air  they  breathe,  unmingled  with  the 
malaria  of  States  located  in  that  aguey  country  along 
the  beautiful  Ohio.  Indiana  called  for  quinine  and 
whisky. 

Senator  Logan  once  made  a  burly  burlesque  of  the 
Indian  commissioner  on  a  high  horse,  booted  and  spur- 
red, lassoing  the  Indian  children  on  the  plains  to  put 
blue  breeches  on  them ;  and  the  House  was  quick  to 
take  in  the  scene.  It  was  the  forerunner  of  Proctor 
Knott's  race  of  the  Indians  after  buffaloes,  and  driving 
them  into  the  corrals  of  Duluth. 

A  military  member  was  described  by  a  brother  mem- 
ber as  having  marched  with  his  spurs  buckled  around  his 
waist,  and  his  sword  dangling  from  his  boots. 

"There  is  not  a  sheep  from  the  green  hills  of  Vermont 
to  the  mountain  ranges  of  California,  where  sheep  are 
slaughtered  by  tens  of  thousands,  that  does  not  in  his 
dying  moments  ejaculate  as  to  both  of  these  revenue 
arguments  on  wool,  '  Baa  !  baa !'  "  This  was  from  Mr. 
Brooks,  of  New  York,  and  was  effective. 

These  inflated  expressions,  by  the  unexpected  escape 
of  gas,  are  often  compelled  to  come  to  earth.  Two 
notable  instances  should  be  recorded  where  inflation  col- 
lapsed under  humor.  The  humor  in  one  case  was  by 


324  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

General  Butler,  and  in  the  other  by  Mr.  Evarts  before  the 
impeachment  legislative  tribunal.  General  Butler  used 
to  answer  Mr.  Bingham's  rhetorical  flights  about  the  land 
drenched  with  the  blood  of  millions,  and  the  gathered 
wisdom  of  the  Constitution,  by  saying,  "  I  always  did  like 
that  speech." 

No  happier  dash  of  logical  fun  is  to  be  found  than  the 
playful  allusion  of  Mr.  Evarts,  in  the  impeachment  case, 
to  Mr.  BoutwelPs  untenanted  and  unappropriated  region 
in  the  skies  reserved  for  the  punishment  of  deposed 
Presidents.  It  was  a  legal,  loyal,  and  astronomical  an- 
swer to  the  swelling  oratory  of  Boutwell ;  for,  said  he, 
"  removals  from  office  "  are  not  limited  to  the  distance 
of  the  removal ;  so  that  without  blood,  or  penalty,  or  pun- 
ishment, instant  removal  is  transportation  to  the  skies. 
Thereupon  he  suggested  Governor  Boutwell  as  the  deputy 
who  alone  knew  the  locality  and  how  to  execute  judg- 
ment. Sic  itur  ad  astra.  Let  me  do  justice  by  quoting 
the  residue  of  this  witty  response,  which  so  •  effectually 
plugged  BoutwelPs  "hole. in  the  sky,"  or  rather  rilled  the 
dark  void  with  stellar  splendors : 

"  But  here  a  distressing  doubt  strikes  me.  How  will 
the  manager  get  back  ?  He  will  have  got  too  far  beyond 
the  reach  of  gravitation  to  restore  him,  and  so  ambitious  a 
wing  as  his  could  never  stoop  to  a  downward  flight. .  In- 
deed, as  he  passes  through  the  constellations,  that  famous 
question  of  Carlyle,  by  which  he  derides  the  littleness  of 
human  affairs  upon  the  scale  of  the  measure  of  the  heav- 
ens, 'What  thinks  Bootes  as  he  drives  his  hunting  dogs 
up  the  zenith  in  their  leash  of  sidereal  fire?'  will  force  it- 
self on  his  notice.  What,  indeed,  would  Bootes  think  of 
this  new  constellation  ?  Besides,  reaching  this  space, 
beyond  the  power  of  Congress  even  '  to  send  for  persons 


LEGISLATIVE    BURLESQUE.  325 

and  papers/  how  shall  he  return,  and  how  decide  in  the 
contest,  there  become  personal  and  perpetual,  the  strug- 
gle of  strength  between  him  and  the  President?  In  this 
new  revolution,  thus  established  forever,  who  shall  decide 
which  is  the  sun  and  which  is  the  moon  ?  who  determine 
the  only  scientific  test  which  reflects  the  hardest  upon 
the  other  ?" 

Speaking  of  and  for  manifest  destiny,  Eli  Thayer  once 
portrayed  the  descendants  of  the  Pilgrims,  cramped  be- 
tween the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
They  were  in  a  tight  place.  In  the  Southern  States  the 
population  was  not  cribbed  and  confined  ;  for  had  they 
not  eighty-nine  hundredths  of  a  man  to  the  square  mile  ? 
No  one  in  the  Congressional  debates  more  pithily  put  the 
question  of  Yankee  tact  and  thrift,  or  more  splendidly  en- 
larged upon  it,  than  this  member.  "When  a  man  can  do 
a  good  thing,  and  at  the  same  time  make  money  by  it,  all 
his  faculties  are  in  harmony." 

There  is  this  incident  in  the  early  history  of  the  Puri- 
tan :  "  Tore  God !"  King  James  once  remarked  ;  "  it  is 
the  apostle's  own  calling.  Go,  worship  God,  and  catch 
fish  !"  But  when  the  Pilgrims  were  assailed,  did  Thayer 
defend  them  ?  No.  "  Whether  assailed  by  the  long  bow 
of  Robin  Hood,  or  the  shorter  one  "  (referring  to  Judge 
Shorter,  an  Alabamian  of  rare  gifts  of  eloquence),  "  I 
would  as  soon  think  of  defending  the  Falls  of  Niagara  or 
the  White  Mountains." 

Colonel  Benton  once  displayed  the  enterprise  of  New 
England  by  an  anecdote  of  Christophe,  Emperor  of  Hay- 
ti :  "  Hang  up  a  bag  of  coffee  in  hell,"  said  his  majesty, 
"  and  a  Yankee  would  go  down  and  bring  it  up  without 
being  singed." 

In  pleading  for  a  Texas  route  to  the  Pacific,  Govern- 


326  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

or  Hamilton  once  indulged  in  a  mock  welcome  with  a 
free  thought,  which  takes  an  aquiline  feather  for  its  lofty 
flight :  "When  you  come  to  us,  you  will  have  a  cheerful 
welcome.  Perhaps  we  will  spread  a  collation.  The 
broad  prairies  may  be  the  festive  board;  the  mangled 
bodies  of  fallen  tyrants  may  form  the  repast,  and  the 
wolf  and  the  vulture  be  the  invited  guests."  He  called 
this  an  ebullition  of  feeling. 

An  Indiana  member  animadverts  on  Virginia,  com- 
pares its  fallen  condition  with  Indiana,  when  a  Virginian 
interposes  to  hint  that  Indiana  repudiated  her  debt.  The 
Indianian  then  began  his  analysis.  There  was  a  physic- 
al, political,  or  moral  cause  for  the  dwarfing^  of  Virginia. 
Could  it  be  physical?  "Where,  I  ask  you,  under  the 
bright  sun,  is  there  a  more  genial  climate,  a  more  fertile 
soil,  a  more  delightful  region,  than  Old  Virginia  ?  Where, 
oh  !  where,  do  the  zephyrs  blow  so  refreshingly  ?  Where, 
oh !  where,  rolls  the  rivulet  more  gently,  or  where  sing 
the  birds  more  charmingly?"  "You  refer  to  Harper's 
Ferry,"  said  a  solemn  voice ;  and  the  zephyrs  quit  blow- 
ing, the  birds  were  mute,  and  the  rivulet  was  dammed. 

It  was  not  often  that  Senator  Hunter,  of  Virginia,  en- 
deavored to  placate  the  House  by  festive  figures  of 
speech ;  but  on  one  occasion  he  was  happy  in  describ- 
ing how  another  Senator  careered  through  those  old 
Arabic  numerals  fleeter  than  the  wild  horse  of  Burger. 
Woe,  then,  to  the  horse  ;  and  woe  to  the  rider  !  "  I  trem- 
ble," said  he,  "  at  the  idea  that  the  Senator  from  Ken- 
tucky should  get  among  the  flower-gardens  of  the  Sena- 
tor from  Massachusetts ;  for  I  know  him  well,  and  I  feel 
perfectly  assured  that  not  the  gardens  of  Alcinous,  nor 
the  blandishments  of  Calypso,  nor  the  cup  of  Circe,  nor 
the  charms  of  Armida,  would  seduce  him  into  a  moment's 


LEGISLATIVE    BURLESQUE.  327 

dalliance,  if  they  stood  in  the  way  of  his  course  to  public 
justice.  Sir,  he  is  after  his  share  of  the  public  lands,  and 
he  would  tread  down  these  gay  parterres  as  remorseless- 
ly as  so  much  wild  heather,  if  they  stood  between  him 
and  his  object." 

"Why,  sir,"  said  Butler,  of  South  Carolina,  "one  of  the 
Senator's  Sempronian  speeches  would  raise  a  spirit  that 
would  induce  the  people  of  his  section  to  charge  a  Brit- 
ish fleet  on  horseback."  This  referred  to  General  Cass's 
warlike  Anglophobia.  Referring  to  Bonaparte's  pecul- 
iar pronunciation  btd'armee,  Butler  played  upon  General 
Cass's  pronunciation  of  "war."  It  was  simply  superb— 
every  letter  of  it.  Name  "  cod-fish,"  and  it  says  "  War !" 

The  question  was  about  filling  up  the  marsh  near  the 
White  House.  It  was  made  ground.  The  insalubrity  of 
the  ground  would  not  prevent  any  one  running  for  Pres- 
ident. That  was  admitted.  The  making  of  ground  in 
order  to  sell  it  and  the  riparian  rights  were  discussed 
learnedly,  and  thus  derisively  illustrated  :  A  Yankee  was 
once  approached  by  a  European,  who  asked,  "  Well,  you 
have  approached  the  Pacific  coast ;  you  have  gone  up 
the  Pacific  border.  Where  now  will  you  go  ?"  "  Well, 
now,  don't  take  on  any  airs.  We  are  carting  the  Rocky 
Mountains  out  into  the  Pacific,  to  make  a  hundred  miles 
of  land  there." 

There  was  a  captain  of  militia  who  resigned,  and  bid 
his  companions,  as  he  moved  onward  and  upward,  per- 
ceive the  garlands  which  he  would  hang  upon  Mars,  the 
fiery  star  of  war,  as  he  disappeared  in  the  empyrean. 

When  Mr.  Dayton  was  Senator  from  New  Jersey,  he 
caused  to  be  read  a  paper  which  was  attached  to  a  re- 
port from  the  post-office  committee  in  relation  to  mail 
transportation  across  Panama  to  Oregon.  The  crazy 


325  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

speculations  of  the  paper  he  regretted,  as  it  had  the  im- 
primatur of  his  committee  and  of  the  Senate.  During 
its  reading,  as  will  appear  by  the  Globe  of  May,  1846,  the 
Senate  was  convulsed  with  laughter,  and  the  galleries  ab- 
solutely roared  with  merriment.  The  style  of  the  report 
was  as  grand  as  that  of  the  man  who,  ascending  the  lofti- 
est peaks  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  gazed  down  and  cried, 
"Attention,  the  world!  Kingdoms!  right  about  face!'' 
The  debate  does  not  reveal  the  author.  He  is  referred 
to  as  an  able  person,  who  had  been  in  Oregon,  and  who 
was  possessed  of  some  fancy.  The  report  began  with  de- 
scribing Oregon  as  an  irregular  rhomboid,  turned  toward 
the  west.  Then  it  shows  how,  in  Europe  and  Asia,  the 
rivers  descend  from  common  radiant  points,  and,  diver- 
ging every  way  from  one  another,  no  intercommunication 
exists  between  them.  From  the  central  barriers  of  the 
Himalayas  run  the  four  great  rivers  of  China,  and  dis- 
charge themselves  under  the  rising  sun  ! 

Then,  all  aglow  with  the  progressive  growth  of  Amer- 
ica, the  expansion  begins  :  What  have  we  not  done  ? 
Nothing  but  an  extract  will  answer  the  question : 

"  The  American  people  'have,  during  two  centuries, 
grown  from  nothing  to  20,000,000  people  ;  their  annual 
production  reaches  $1,500,000,000;  their  marine  is  the 
most  complete,  powerful,  and  efficient  of  any  in  exist- 
ence. *  *  *  It  bears  a  very  trifling  ratio  to  the  pyramid  of 
production  on  which  it  rests,  and  is  capable  of  unlimited 
enlargement,  without  endangering  its  solidity.  *  *  *  The 
choking  of  old  markets,  combined  with  the  tearing  ra- 
pidity with  which  the  agricultural  population  absorbs  the 
wilderness,  partially  indicated  by  the  annual  sales  of  the 
national  domain,  operates  as  a  double  depression  upon 
the  value  of  produce,  which  is  continually  augmenting. 


LEGISLATIVE    BURLESQUE.  329 

Fronting  the  Union,  on  every  side,  is  a  vast  army  of  pio- 
neers. Before  the  march  of  this  pioneer  army  all  obsta- 
cles must  succumb.  It  has  never  been  known  to  stop  or 
to  recede ;  wherever  it  enters,  it  occupies.  We  see  coun- 
tries more  extensive  than  the  empires  of  Alexander  or 
Napoleon  overrun  and  settled  throughout  in  the  life  of  a 
single  generation.  Obstructions  disappear  before  its  roll- 
ing volume  as  stars  are  swallowed  up  beneath  a  thunder- 
cloud. The  improvidence  of  Government  in  failing  to 
understand  its  movements  and  provide  for  its  advance 
has  repeatedly  involved  the  nation.  The  Government  of 
the  Union  is  no  more  able  to  tie  up  its  progress  than  it  is 
possible  to  hold  the  winds  in  a  net.  *  *  *  In  an  unhap- 
py hour,  the  Government,  miscalculating  this  progressive 
growth,  and  misinformed  as  to  the  agricultural  excellence 
of  the  great  prairie  region,  unwisely  located  upon  the 
western  border  a  multitude  of  transported  Indians,  and 
proclaimed  this  line  impassable  to  the  white  man,  and 
the  region  beyond  closed  to  the  advancing  pioneers. 
Incessantly  accumulating,  this  chafing  multitude,  like  an 
eagle  contending  with  the  bars  of  its  cage,  spread  north, 
and  plunging  into  Iowa,  fomented  the  wars  of  Blackhawk 
and  the  Prophet.  Wonderful  and  incomprehensible  spec- 
tacle !  While  the  great  pioneer  army  is  thus  noiselessly 
establishing  new  nations,  grasping  a  continent,  and  throw- 
ing open  a  new  ocean,  an  American  Congress  and  Amer- 
ican statesmen,  living  at  home  at  ease  on  a  fat  revenue, 
are  laboring  to  convince  the  world,  and  believe  them- 
selves, that  the  prairies  are  impassable  to  their  troops, 
and  the  ocean  and  rivers  to  their  ships ;  asserting  sover- 
eignty, yet  refusing  protection.  Proving  that  what  women 
and  children  have  performed  by  their  unassisted  means 
is  impossible  to  be  attempted  by  the  select  braves,  the 


330  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

enormous  revenues,  and  resources  of  the  great  American 
people.  Grand  spectacle,  prodigious  wisdom,  consum- 
mate and  brave  caution  !  If,  while  this  sublime  scene  is 
enacting  at  Washington,  ten  thousand  isolated  Americans 
perish  by  the  tomahawk,  and  Oregon  is  lost  thereby,  what 
imperishable  glory  will  surround  our  statesmen  !  *  *  * 

"We  behold  the  great  American  Republic  become  in 
fact  the  most  powerful  people  among  the  nations  of  the 
earth,  her  commerce  overreaching  that  of  Great  Britain 
herself  in  every  sea,  and  that  commerce,  as  yet,  only  in 
the  sinewy  vigor  of  the  infant  Hercules.  The  commerce 
of  England  has  reached  its  culminating  era ;  the  vital 
sap  imperceptibly  stagnates,  retaining  only  the  fungus 
evergreen  of  the  mistletoe,  and  verging  to  the  turning 
edge,  when  follows  a  headlong  decadence.  A  tremu- 
lous, fretful  jealousy,  common  from  the  old  toward  the 
young,  shakes  this  antique  aristocracy.  A  helpless  sense 
of  growing  decrepitude  gnaws  their  vitals.  *  *  *  The 
wealthy  citizen  of  the  Atlantic  sea-board,  intent  on  trade, 
forever  contemplating  the  ocean  in  front  of  him,  refining 
upon  the  naval  armament  displayed  to  alarm  him,  and 
perpetually  exaggerating  its  magnitude,  cheapening  the 
power  and  resources  of  his  own  nation,  and  incessantly 
torturing  himself  with  imaginary  fears  of  war,  devasta- 
tion, and  destruction,  lives  a  prey  to  Promethean  anxiety, 
which  never  sleeps  and  continually  revives.  *  *  *  Is  the 
unparalleled  agriculture,  on  which  is  constructed  the  sol- 
id superstructure  of  the  nation,  which  generates  States, 
and  furnishes  the  heaped  mass  of  production  about  to 
subdue  the  world,  to  which  commerce  and  manufactures 
are  but  as  the  foliage  to  the  majestic  trunk — is  this  alone 
to  be  forgotten  in  the  general  charge,  and  left  to  stagger 
beneath  unmerited  burdens,  and  the  probing  goad  of  in- 


LEGISLATIVE    BURLESQUE.  331 

gratitude  ?  But  the  destiny  of  our  nation  has  become 
now  clearly  revealed,  and  great  events,  quickening  in  the 
womb  of  time,  reflect  their  clearly  defined  shadows  into 
our  very  eyeballs.  These  events  are  the  imperial  exten- 
sion of  the  Republic  over  the  Northern  continent,  and 
our  accession  to  the  commercial  dominion  of  the  Ori- 
ental seas. 

"  Oh,  why  does  a  cold  generation  frigidly  repel  ambro- 
sial gifts  like  these,  or  sacrilegiously  hesitate  to  embrace 
their  glowing  and  resplendent  fate  ?  Wonderful  Govern- 
ment, which  deliberates  coldly  when  asked  to  embrace  in 
its  arms  and  gather  to  its  bosom  this  chivalrous  scion  ! 
Dreadful  and  dangerous  timidity,  when  a  great  empire  of 
twenty  millions  meditates  to  make  outcasts  of  its  heroic 
children  !  Sacrilegious  and  amazing  infamy,  which  tam- 
pers with  so  grand  a  destiny,  and  ponders  on  decimating 
so  brilliant  an  empire !  And  this  beneath  the  aggravat- 
ing and  infernal  threats  of  the  intolerant  hyena  of  the 
seas  !  *  *  *  Are  not  the  arrogant  threats  of  Lords  and 
Commons  to  ravish  from  us  our  territory  by  war  and 
cannon  still  reverberating  from  the  British  council-halls  ? 
These  acts  of  aggressive  intrigue  and  infernal  arrogance 
have  just  now  been  perpetrated,  and  are  most  recent  his- 
tory. At  this  moment  a  new  plot  is  under  trial,  the  ex- 
perimental opening  scene  of  which  is  being  enacted  on 
the  La  Plata.  It  is  the  designed  and  not  concealed  in- 
tention of  the  European  tyrannies  to  carve  into  conven- 
ient morsels,  and  dish  up  for  themselves,  this  continent 
of  America — to  each  a  trencher  filled,  spiced,  and  cook- 
ed, to  gorge  each  particular  appetite ;  for  Brazil,  an  ex- 
tended imperial  sway ;  for  France,  a  Mexican  monarchy ; 
for  Britain,  more  colonial  possessions,  to  be  annually 
raked  empty  with  the  drag-net  of  her  commercial  sys- 


332  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

tem.  Is  old  Europe  forever,  like  a  malignant  step-hag, 
to  swing  to  and  fro  over  our  heads,. and  hurl  into  our 
faces,  the  flagellating  lash  of  her  malice?  Shall  the 
harpy  aristocracies,  filthy  and  ravenous  birds  of  prey, 
by  divine  right  forever  hover  over  our  heads,  and  souse 
down  on  our  Republic,  and  leave  nothing,  not  even  our 
vacant  territory,  unrent,  unrifled,  unravished,  and  unpol- 
luted by  the  slime  of  their  filthy  offal  ? 

"The  men  of  these  two  great  enterprises  of  which  we 
have  spoken  may  not  be  thwarted.  The  ambition  of  the 
one  incarcerates  him  in  the  womb  of  a  ship,  to  pursue, 
over  the  boundless  ocean  and  through  exciting  dangers, 
the  capture  of  the  salt-sea  monster ;  his  spoil  is  blubber  ; 
oil  illumes  the  long  night  of  his  home,  ivory  rolls  over  the 
billiard-table,  and  whalebone  bends  to  the  fancies  of  fe- 
male taste,  and  rescues  the  wilderness  from  savage  mas- 
ters and  idle  nature.  The  American  nation  is  ineradica- 
bly  planted  upon  the  Pacific  sea-board  now  at  this  hour ! 
Our  brave  citizens  and  their  wives  have  done  this.  Shall 
this  sinewy  child  of  Oregon  be  cast,  like  CEdipus  in  an- 
cient days,  to  perish  on  the  rocks,  far  from  the  maternal 
breast  ?  Will  not  such  infanticide  recoil  upon  the  moth- 
erland in  pestilence  and  incest  and  tragic  horrors  ?  Lit- 
tle of  danger  and  alarm  has  the  rapacious  and  malignant 
hostility  of  England,  or  mankind  in  mass,  to  terrify  our 
hearts,  compared  with  the  domestic  hearth,  bristling  with 
the  empoisoned  fangs  of  ingratitude  and  bitter  hate ! 
Let  no  American  blunder  into  this  sacrilegious  scission 
of  the  forty-ninth  degree.  Let  the  whole  unanimous  na- 
tion rise  to  grapple  to  us  the  whole  of  Oregon,  uncompro- 
mised  and  unimpaired  !  Without  this  upper  half,  our  ter- 
ritory is  fatally  docked,  and  its  symmetry  gone.  In  the 
undine  and  fluvial  regions  of  the  Iowa  Mesopotamia ;  in 


LEGISLATIVE    BURLESQUE.  333 

the  grand  delta  of  the  concentrated  trunk  of  the  Missis- 
sippi ;  in  the  wonderful  Piedmont  that  slopes  down  from 
the  eastern  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  accompa- 
nies them  through  our  whole  territory ;  and,  above  all,  in 
the  sublime  expanse  of  prairie  plains  around  which  these 
are  gathered,  as  eaglets  to  the  bosom  of  their  dame,  has 
the  infinite  taste  of  the  Creator  grouped  in  radiant  glory 
the  softest  and  most  brilliant  beauties  of  his  creation. 
Nor  in  less  choice  and  transcending  sublimity  has  he 
piled  toward  heaven  the  Titanic  structures  of  basalt  that 
tower  over  our  Western  sea-board. 

"To  describe  in  detail  this  last  wonderful  portion  of 
creation,  so  happily  found  in  the  possession  of  the  Amer- 
ican people,  is  an  effort  which  only  idle  vanity  would  un- 
dertake, and  which  genius  would  fail  worthily  to  accom- 
plish. For  arable  agriculture,  it  is  unsurpassed  ;  for  pas- 
toral agriculture,  unequaled ;  in  maritime  position,  tran- 
scendent ;  in  mountains,  sublime  ;  in  valleys,  beautiful ; 
everywhere  fertile  ;  embracing  grand  rivers,  the  noblest 
forests ;  and  in  climate  dry,  temperate,  and  salubrious. 
To  know  and  appreciate  the  wonderful  grandeur  and 
value  of  this  new  country  is  glorious  to  the  patriotic  and 
sensible.  To  deny  its  excellence  and  traduce  its  value 
is  the  characteristic  of  a  narrow  heart  and  a  peddling 
politician.  *  *  *  The  untransacted  destiny  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  is  to  subdue  the  continent — to  rush  over  this 
vast  field  to  the  Pacific  Ocean — to  animate  the  many 
hundred  millions  of  its  people,  and  to  cheer  them  up- 
ward— to  set  the  principle  of  self-government  at  work — 
to  agitate  these  herculean  masses — to  establish  a  new  or- 
der in  human  affairs — to  set  free  the  enslaved — to  regen- 
erate superannuated  nations  —  to  change  darkness  into 
light — to  stir  up  the  sleep  of  a  hundred  centuries — to 


334  wiiY   WE   LAUGH. 

teach  old  nations  a  new  civilization — to  conform  the  des- 
tiny of  the  human  race — to  carry  the  career  of  mankind 
to  its  culminating  point — to  cause  stagnant  people  to  be 
reborn  to  perfect  science — to  emblazon  history  with  the 
conquests  of  peace — to  shed  a  new  and  resplendent  glory 
upon  mankind — to  unite  the  world  in  one  social  family — • 
to  dissolve  the  spell  of  tyranny  and  exalt  charity— to 
absolve  the  curse  that  weighs  down  humanity,  and  shed 
blessings  round  the  world.  Divine  task !  immortal  mis- 
sion !  Let  us  tread  fast  and  joyfully  the  open  trail  before 
us.  Let  every  American  heart  open  wide  for  patriotism 
to  glow  undimmed,  and  confide  with  religious  faith  in  the 
sublime  and  prodigious  destiny  of  his  well-loved  country." 

When  Colonel  Sevier,  of  Arkansas,  chairman  of  the 
committee  whence  emanated  this  remarkable  paper,  re- 
plied, he  was  not  altogether  infelicitous ;  he  carried  the 
burlesque  war  upon  Mr.  Dayton.  He  proved  that  our 
grandiloquent  bird  was  not  altogether  co-existent  and 
co-external  with  the  infinite  universe,  like  the  Norse  ea- 
gle, but  had  its  sublime  eyrie  in  New  Jersey.  He  proved 
that  the  New  Jersey  Senator  had  himself  once  said  that 
"  the  crack  of  our  rifle  is  being  heard  on  the  mountains  of 
Oregon,  reverberating  from  the  Rocky  Mountains  across 
the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  to  the  Alleghanies,  thence 
sweeping  across  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  and  finding  its  rest- 
ing-place on  the  shores  of  Europe." 

The  laugh  was  thus  turned  against  the  jocose  Jersey- 
man.  Seldom  has  the  American  Congress  had  so  pa- 
triotic and  magnificent  an  effusion  for  its  convulsive  de- 
lectation as  this  literary  curiosity.  It  was  the  reality  of 
Proctor  Knott's  ironical  ideal. 

The  muse  of  Dr.  Holmes  has  sung  in  swelling  numbers 
of  our  lake,  sea,  shore,  prairie,  forest,  and  mountain,  and 


LEGISLATIVE    BURLESQUE.  335 

of  the  omnivorous  American  eye  that  devours  them  all. 
His  Urania  has  compassed  the  tallest  summits  and  the 
broadest  tides;  and  from  the  thundering  ocean  to  the 
rolling  Missouri — from  the  tropics  to  the  poles — her  home 
all  space  and  her  birth-place  everywhere,  she  has  sung 
her  biggest  and  her  best,  about  the  wonders  of  that  babe 
of  Nature  in  the  giant  West !  And  yet,  notwithstanding 
such  reports  about  Oregon,  and  such  remarkable  reports 
from  the  crack  of  our  rifle,  his  muse  has  dared  to  be  di- 
dactic and  modest.  She  hints  that  the  Mississippi  is  not 
the  only  inspiration  for  the  tuneful  maid,  and  not  the  only 
theme  for  our  abounding  rhetoric ;  and  that  even  the  lit- 
tle Mincio,  dribbling  to  the  Po,  may  beat  all  the  epics  of 
the  Hoang  Ho ! 


336  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 


XXIII. 

MISCELLANEOUS  LEGISLATIVE  HUMORS. 

"  Joyous  mirth 

Engages  our  raised  souls  ;  pat  repartee, 
Or  witty  joke,  our  airy  senses  moves 
To  pleasant  laughter." — GAY. 

LET  me  hang  upon  my  string  a  few  more  legislative 
pearls,  or  imitations,  perhaps,  of  various  colors  and  shapes, 
and  which  can  only  be  defined  as  miscellaneous  humors. 

Judge  Cartter  once  described  the  volunteers  as  a  force 
which  marched  under  the  command  of  the  impulses  of 
their  hearts,  and  who  fired  without  the  order. 

My  predecessor  from  Ohio,  Dr.  Olds,  who  had  a  face- 
tiae of  rare  quality  and  an  admirable  elocution  to  show  it. 
once  argued  in  favor  of  the  Homestead  Law.  He  con- 
firmed the  deed  of  every  one  to  one  hundred  and  sixty 
acres  of  land,  by  quoting  as  Biblical  authority  "  Watts's 
Hymns"  as  to  the  clear  title  of  the  Christian  to  mansions 
in  the  skies.  It  was  received  with  infinite  zest. 

A  member  from  Alabama,  oddly  referring  to  joy  and 
justice  as  twin  sisters,  said  that  "a  good  laugh  has  a  good 
heart  under  it ;  but  when  I  see  a  juror  gloomy  and  dark- 
browed,  cutting  his  tobacco  into  snuff,  I  know  he  is  ready 
to  say, '  Guilty  !  guilty  !'  " 

"  I  can't  get  a  dollar  to  drag  the  snags  out  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi ;  but  here  you  stand,  with  smiling  faces,  spending 
sixty  thousand  dollars  a  year  for  morning-glories  !"  Mr. 


MISCELLANEOUS    LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS.  337 

Keilt  gallantly  defended  the  conservatory,  with  its  jump- 
ing-johnnies  and  sweet-williams,  against  such  an  attack. 
It  was  a  "miscellaneous"  appropriation  —  Miss  Lane,  the 
accomplished  niece  of  President  Buchanan,  then  presid- 
ing at  the  White  House.  That  gallant  pun  cost  the  peo- 
ple a  thousand  dollars  in  the  appropriation. 

That  was  not  a  very  elegant,  though  an  original,  remark 
of  a  member,  that  there  was  a  class  of  politicians  who 
would  dispute  the  right  of  a  poor  devil  afflicted  with  the 
itch  to  scratch  himself. 

"It  may  astonish  some  of  you  here  that  a  gentleman 
should  rise  up  in  the  Capitol  of  this  great  nation  and  ad- 
mit the  fact  that  he  is  from  Arkansaw.  I  am  from  Ar- 
kansaw,  sar !"  Mr.  Warren,  who  thus  advertised  his  State 
abnegation  and  his  personal  courage,  was  a  man  to  be  re- 
membered. A  gentler  man  never  looked  a  catamount  in 
the  eye.  I  remember  his  broad-voweled  jocularity.  He 
once  invited  me  to  his  State,  as  he  said,  to  have  a  "far 
and  squar'  fight  with  a  bar."  He  favored  the  Agricultur- 
al Reports,  and  gave  as  a  reason  that  the  South  wanted 
the  pictures  in  them,  "so  as  to  know  whether  it  had  the 
same  kind  of  varmints — rats,  mice,  and  squarrels — as  the 
North." 

"Talk  about  Hannibal,  Marlborough,  Prince  Eugene, 
Bonaparte,  and  Villiers  !  What  more  sublime  contests  in 
the  world's  history  than  these,  where  man  meets  man  front 
to  front,  assaulting  and  assaulted  with  that  terrible  in- 
strument— the  sword  of  the  tongue  ?"  And  this  anticli- 
max of  Governor  Allen,  of  Ohio,  set  the  Senate  in  good 
humor  after  an  acrimonious  session. 

Governor  Chase  was  once  a  justice  of  the  peace.  In 
referring  jocularly  to  his  experiences  and  to  the  careless 
way  Senators  spoke  in  1850  about  the  Union,  he  gave  his 


338  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

first  performance  of  the  marriage  ceremony :  "You  take 
this  woman  to  be  your  wife?"  "Yes."  "And  you  this 
man  to  be  your  husband  ?"  She  looked  up  in  astonish- 
ment. "  Yes— is  that  all  ?"  "  That's  all,"  said  the  mag- 
\  istrate.  "  It  is  not  such  an  almighty  affair,  after  all !" 
said  the  woman. 

"  Here  Congress  is  called  on  to  pay  for  horns  and  bu- 
gles and  things  like  pot-lids  which  a  fellow  rattled  to- 
gether ;"  and  this  was  the  way  the  martial  and  Scriptural 
cymbal  was  described  by  a  civilian,  bent  on  economy. 
In  the  same  light,  a  military  legislator  was  photographed  : 
"  Clap  epaulets  on  his  shoulders,  and  a  mustache  on  his 
lip,  and  he  is  a  Lycurgus  in  full  uniform  !"  "  Since  I 
have  been  here,"  said  a  Senator,  "there  have  been  ap- 
propriations enough  for  this  green-house  to  have  repro- 
duced the  Garden  of  Eden,  all  save  its  inhabitants."  The 
remark  produced  as  much  merriment  as  a  multifarious 
bill  which  once  passed, "to  preserve  the  public  archives 
of  the  territory  of  Florida,  and  for  the  relief  of  John  John- 
son." 

To  stop  debate  and  do  work  is  often  a  desideratum. 
Once  Senator  Mangum  proposed  to  send  for  a  surgeon 
to  have  their  tongues  slit.  Some  one  suggested  that 
that  would  double  the  gabble. 

In  the  contest  of  1852,  between  the  older  and  younger 
partisans  of  one  of  the  existing  parties,  it  was  held  that 
it  was  the  duty  of  the  young  men  to  continue  to  hold  the 
milk-bottle  to  the  lips  of  second  political  childhood. 

There  was  a  discussion  about  a  road  in  the  District 
of  Columbia  leading  to  Bladensburg.  It  was  proposed 
to  abolish  the  tolls.  "  It  was  free  once,"  said  Senator 
Jones,  of  Tennessee.  "That  was  in  1814.  Let  it  be 
free  now !"  He  referred  to  the  ignominious  retreat  and 


MISCELLANEOUS    LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS.  339 

defeat  of  the  Americans  by  the  English  at  the  battle  of 
Bladensburg. 

General  Houston  used  to  ridicule  the  Agricultural  Re- 
ports. He  had  little  scientific  taste,  and  inveighed 
against  bugs  ad  libitum.  The  Senate  laughed  at  his  liz- 
ards. His  horned  frogs  furnished  dilemmas  enough  for 
a  school-man.  He  held  that  making  Federal  picture-books 
with  such  horrible  objects  created  a  morbid  appetite  for 
them  in  children  ! 

The  scientific  books  printed  by  Congress  have  often 
provoked  humorous  irony  from  the  facetiously  frugal 
mind.  "  This  is  the  queerest  book  inside  of  lids,"  said 
Senator  Fessenden.  "  Take  a  box  of  common  shoe-black- 
ing, and  a  brush,  and  a  little  white  paper,  smear  it  all  over, 
and  then  take  a  pepper-box  of  white  sand,  and  sprinkle 
it  all  about,  and  you  will  have  as  good  a  book  as  this 
6  Exploring  Expedition.' " 

An  Indian  tribe  which  had  adopted  habits  of  civiliza- 
tion was  allowed  by  a  Territorial  bill  to  vote.  The  query 
was,  what  were  such  habits?  Pantaloons,  spurs,  and  a 
shirt-collar?  That  would  only  make  the  Georgia  major. 
If,  it  was  further  suggested,  the  Indian  only  got  drunk, 
that  would  approximate  nearest  to  the  highest  degree  of 
civilization  !  Then  a  grave  Senator  suggested  the  High- 
land usage — when  the  Scotch  put  on  pantaloons  and  quit 
cattle-stealing !  It  was  also  suggested  that  in  one  Indian 
precinct  out  on  the  borders,  where  an  election  was  held, 
one  pair  of  breeches  was  obtained  for  voting  purposes, 
and  thirty-five  Indians  put  into  it ! 

An  Ohio  member,  Dr.  Duncan,  in  1845,  produced  in 
the  House  a  loaf  of  black  bread.  He  said  it  was  com- 
posed of  sawdust  and  wheat  bran,  cemented  with  a  small 
quantity  of  molasses.  This  was  the  bread  which  the 


340  WHY  WE    LAUGH. 

common  people  were  to  eat,  in  case  Polk  had  been  elect- 
ed the  year  before.  The  Lacedemonian  poverty  thus 
represented  in  broth  and  black  bread  gave  rise  to  much 
humorous  discussion  as  well  as  satiric  recrimination. 

For  shrewd  Yankee  and  human  nature  commend  me 
to  some  of  Eli  Thayer's  compendious  and  unique  utter- 
ances in  1860.  The  war  was  coming  on,  and  the  squat- 
ter-sovereignty policy  in  the  Territories  found  an  ingen- 
ious champion  in  his  fresh  handling.  In  responding  to 
one  of  his  opposing  colleagues,  he  said  :  "Do  you  say  the 
people  in  the  distant  borders  are  strangers  to  each  other, 
and  will  not  harmonize  on  voting  in  the  Territories  ?  Do 
you  suppose  these  Yankees  out  there  are  like  the  French- 
man, who  would  not  save  a  man  from  drowning  because 
he  had  not  been  introduced  to  him  ?  Does  my  colleague 
suppose  that  if  they  had  no  social  qualities,  they  would 
not  see  if  something  could  not  be  made  out  of  an  ac- 
quaintance ?" 

A  member  sees  the  vermilion  hue  of  the  decorations 
of  the  House,  and,  to  express  his  sense  of  a  hot  debate, 
likens  the  color  to  that  which  makes  the  bull  mad  in 
Spain.  Another  desires  the  hall  changed  so  as  to  reach 
the  open  air.  He  is  reminded  that  he  may  see  his  con- 
stituents soon,  without  the  necessity  of  extending  the  in- 
terior walls  of  the  chamber.  Some  one  once  called  for 
tellers  on  the  Father  of  his  Country.  It  was  an  appro- 
priation about  a  statue  to  Washington.  Mr.  Corwin  once 
likened  the  Speaker  and  his  gavel  to  a  woodpecker  tap- 
ping a  hollow  beech-tree. 

Speaking  of  the  civil  service,  General  Banks  turned  on 
thlsjeu  d' esprit:  "It  is  no  matter  whether  the  applicant 
knows  how  near  the  sun  is  to  the  earth,  unless  it  gets  so 
near  as  to  scorch  him  on  duty." 


MISCELLANEOUS    LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS.  341 

Mr.  Morton  wittily  likened  the  Bourbon  element  of  the 
improgressivists  to  the  man  riding  in  the  cars  backward, 
who  never  sees  any  thing  till  he  has  passed  it. 

Again,  but  not  so  wittily,  the  same  Senator,  who  sel- 
dom indulged  in  the  trifles  of  humor,  pursued  the  same 
theme.  He  had  consulted  prose  and  poetry,  sacred  and 
profane.  At  last  he  draws  from  "Milton  in  his  blind- 
ness "  this  incongruity : 

"  For  spirits,  when  they  please, 
Can  either  sex  assume,  or  both,  so  soft 
And  unconfounded  in  their  essence  pure ; 
Not  tied  or  manacled  with  joint  or  limb, 
Not  founded  on  the  brittle  strength  of  bones." 

This  was  his  conservative. 

Senator  Hamlin  illustrated  the  idea  better.  A  boy 
was  late  at  school.  The  ground  was  slippery.  He  told 
his  teacher  that,  on  taking  a  step  forward,  he  fell  two  be- 
hind. "  How,  then,  did  you  get  here  ?"  "  Oh,"  said  the 
boy,  "I  turned  around  and  went  backward." 

Once,  in  the  chair,  I  made  the  mistake  of  saying,  "  Gen- 
tlemen will  please  go  through  the  tellers."  I  should  have 
said  "between."  It  was  an  agreeable  variation  from  the 
stereotyped  form,  and,  from  a  Representative  of  the  big, 
bad  city,  it  was  accounted  larcenously  and  eminently 
proper,  for  to  go  "through"  is  to — become  amenable  to 
the  criminal  law. 

"  If  we  can  not  make  speeches,  let  us  print  essays," 
said  Judge  Niblack,  "which,  so  far  as  posterity  goes,  will 
be  quite  as  efficacious." 

" '  Look  not  upon  the  wine  when  it  is  red/  that  is,"  ex- 
plained an  exegetical  member,  on  a  tax  bill,  "when  it  has 
drugs  in  it." 

"  The  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon  "  was  once 


342  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

flourished  on  behalf  of  Mr.  Gideon  Welles  by  General 
Nye  with  ludicrous  effect. 

"I  do  not  object  to  reporters  making  speeches  for  me, 
but  I  can  not  feel  grateful  for  one  so  silly  as  this ;  I  can 
make  such  speeches  myself,"  said  Senator  Howe ;  and 
the  Senate  seemed  to  agree  cheerfully. 

Mr.  Eldridge,  in  debating  the  greenback,  sent  a  ten- 
dollar  note  to  the  clerk's  desk  to  have  its  famous  pledge 
or  indorsement  read.  Mr.  Cavanaugh  objected  to  the 
return  of  the  bill.  "  Let  it  go  on  record,"  exclaimed  the 
jocund  body.  "Ail  bills  offered  must  be  filed." 

General  Butler  was  hurling  invective  toward  the  South. 
He  was  frequently  interrupted.  He  said :  "  They  hop 
up  as  if  sitting  on  hot  pins.  Let  the  galled  jade  wince  ; 
my  withers  are  unwrung."  "  But,"  said  Governor  Swan, 
"they  ought  to  be."  Now,  "ought"  implies  moral  obli- 
gation, and  "  withers  "  has  reference  to  the  lower  part  of 
the  horse's  neck,  and  to  be  unwrung  is  not  to  be  twist- 
ed ;  so  that  Governor  Swan's  point  was  literally  this,  that 
there  was  a  moral  obligation  existing  for  the  equinal  low- 
er neck-bone  of  the  Massachusetts  member  to  remain  un- 
twisted.  He  did  not  intend  to  be  so  humanely  decorous, 
yet  the  House  enjoyed  it  all  the  same. 

It  was  said  that  there  were  more  ignorant  children  in 
the  District  of  Columbia  than  in  Sweden.  "  We  should 
recollect,"  said  Johnson,  of  California,  "  that  they  live 
within  the  range  of  the  calcium-light  of  this  Capitol." 

"  How  does  the  gentleman  get  the  census  of  Colorado 
for  1860  ?"  said  Mr.  Taffe.  It  was  answered,  "  From  the 
official  returns."  "  But,"  retorted  Mr.  Taffe,  "  there  was 
no  Colorado  Territory  then.  How  can  he  tell  the  age  of 
a  child  five  years  before  it  is  born  ?" 

There  used  to  be  some  discussions  on  art,  but  they  were 


MISCELLANEOUS   LEGISLATIVE   HUMORS.  343 

too  thin,  even  when  sensible,  to  be  digested  here,  even  in 
a  humorous  aspect.  Thaddeus  Stevens  made  much  fun 
of  the  female  figure  of  Freedom  when  it  was  in  the  old 
hall,  and  before  it  decorated  the  dome.  Senator  Cowan 
made  points  on  the  extraordinary  sculptors.  He  thought 
the  Congressional  idea  of  sculpture  was  that  of  the  tailor 
and  shoe-maker,  minus  the  head-gear.  He  complained 
that  Mr.  Lincoln's  bust  was  not  handsome  ;  but  what  was 
to  be  done  ?  That  sad  face  had  great  humor  under  its 
homely  visor,  and  the  artist  caught  both  the  sadness  and 
the  fun.  The  result  was  an  outre  anomaly  in  art.  A 
Senator  once  gave  his  idea  of  art,  drawn  from  his  expe- 
rience and  observation,  as  a  federal  legislator  and  con- 
noisseur. He  thought  that  Powers  should,  in  the  grand- 
eur of  allegory,  represent  the  Government  in  the  form  of 
a  female,  with  a  numerous  offspring,  all  of  them  making 
mouths  at  their  mother !  It  has  been  asserted  that  in 
some  of  the  early  Congresses  the  order  for  filling  up  the 
panels  of  the  Rotunda,  which  was  executed  by  Trumbull, 
was  contracted  for  by  the  square  foot!  This  was  the 
only  direction  given  to  the  artist.  Painting  was  hired,  as 
plowing — by  the  acre.  Persico's  statue  of  Columbus,  on 
the  east  steps  of  the  Capitol,  seemed  to  a  Senator  to 
look  like  a  stout  gymnastic  gambler,  and  the  globe  in 
his  outstretched  hand  like  a  ball  about  to  be  rolled 
at  nine-pins !  Another  Senator  gave  as  the  reason  why 
he  thought  that  one  of  the  statuesque  animals  in  the 
Capitol  was  a  dog  was  that  he  had  been  told  it  was  a 
dog! 

A  Michigan  member  (Mr.  Conger)  once  instituted  a 
comparison  between  the  iron  resources  of  Michigan  and 
those  of  Missouri.  How  did  he  do  it?  By  statistics? 
No.  "  Sir,  the  Iron  Mountain  in  Missouri  could  be 


344  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

placed  in  one  of  our  valleys,  and  would  scarcely  act  as  a 
basement  on  which  to  span  them." 

"The  Democrats  have  been  turned  out  so  long  that 
their  hair  is  as  long  as  that  of  him  who  browsed  of  old." 
This  was  well  received  by  both  sides. 

"  Such  a  selection  for  an  Indian  superintendency,"  said 
Senator  Sergeant,  talking  about  Nevada,  "  would  neces- 
sitate artesian  wells ;  for  if  the  Indian  agencies  are  to 
be  distributed  among  religious  denominations  without  the 
wells,  you  must  inaugurate  a  sect  of  dry  Baptists." 

A  desperate  penalty  was  that  proposed  by  a  Senator 
for  President  Johnson  after  impeachment.  It  was  impris- 
onment during  his  natural  life,  and  then  to  be  hung  till 
he  .was  dead. 

In  naval  architecture,  a  Senator  quoted  ironically,  as  a 
sample  of  progress,  Washington  Irving's  craft  that  came 
into  New  York  harbor,  fifty  feet  wide,  fifty  feet  long,  and 
fifty  feet  deep. 

General  Cass  once  made  the  Senate  ring  with  fun  as 
he  described  the  effect  of  noticing  in  the  Senate  a  slan- 
derous enemy.  He  gave  it  as  a  lesson  to  younger  mem- 
bers. After  rising  to  a  personal  explanation,  and  deny- 
ing and  disproving  what  all  knew  to  be  false,  yet,  when 
he  went  home  to  Michigan,  what  was  his  surprise  to  find 
the  whole  batch  of  lies  fortified  and  proven  against  him 
by  incontestable  affidavits  ! 

Talking  of  the  fugitive  disposition  of  some  negroes,  Mr. 
Etheridge  said  it  must  be  endured,  unless  you  invent  some 
peculiar  ligament  to  restrain  the  elasticity  of  their  legs. 
Indeed,  he  had  a  volubility  of  witty  exaggeration  un- 
equaled  for  its  quaint  expression.  His  similes,  except 
when  he  chose  to  be  classical,  were  always  quizzically  on 
the  stretch.  "  It  is  as  difficult  to  make  a  Northern  man 


MISCELLANEOUS    LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS.  345 

like  negro  slavery,  without  he  is  interested  in  it,  as  to 
make  a  politician  run  away  from  a  fat  office."  Or,  "Tex- 
as is  the  last  place  to  go  to  tamper  with  slaves.  As  well 
might  the  pious  man  seek  happiness  by  folding  his  Chris- 
tian mantle  around  him,  and  plunging  into  the  gulf  which 
separates  Lazarus  from  the  rich  man." 

Mr.  Nesmith,  the  Indian-fighter  and  jocose  ex-Senator 
from  Oregon,  once  defined  the  difference  between  a  major 
and  a  brevet  major  as  "the  same  as  that  between  a  buz- 
zard and  a  turkey-buzzard."  The  killing  of  a  dozen  brig- 
adiers at  a  hotel  in  Washington  while  there  was  a  battle 
at  the  front,  by  a  chance  stone  at  a  dog,  was  his  humor. 

How  bitterly,  or  how  sweetly  (according  to  his  disposi- 
tion), a  man  may  turn  away  a  disaster  by  pleasing  pictures 
even  of  absurdity  !  Mr.  Speaker  Elaine  told  a  story,  after 
a  disastrous  election,  of  a  nameless  member  who  escaped 
the  general  defeat.  He  was  serenaded.  "Fellow-citizens, 
in  the  general  wreck  of  matter  and  crash  of  worlds,  it  has 
pleased  the  Almighty  and  the  American  people,  owing  to 
my  utter  insignificance,  to  pass  me  by  in  the  recent  cy- 
clone T 

Congress  has  had  men  of  eccentric  methods  and  man- 
ners in  speech.  Two  examples  :  Mullins,  of  Tennessee, 
and  (a  man  of  better  mold  and  good  sense)  Snapp,  of 
Illinois.  Mullins  was  laughed  at,  Snapp  with,  by  the 
House.  The  former  mixed  his  metaphors,  the  latter  his 
language,  if  not  his  liquor.  Mullins  described  pathetic- 
ally how  his  mother,  when  down  with  a  death  wen,  said 
to  his  father,  "Go  and  fight  the  battles  with  General 
Jackson."  The  House  laughed.  But  he  struck  a  high- 
er key  when  he  exclaimed,  "  Gabriel  will  snap  his  resur- 
rection gun  before  I  vote  to  free  rebels  from  disability." 

John  Covode  was  an  odd  member.     It  is  said  that  Mr. 

15* 


346  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

William  J.  Florence,  in  his  famous  character  of  Bardwell 
Slote,  the  member  from  Cohosh,  has  taken  Mr.  Covode  as 
the  type  of,  his  histrionic  Congressman.  However  that 
may  be,  one  thing  Slote  does  not  do  which  Covode  did 
— quote  Biblical  history.  "  Solomon,"  said  Mr.  Covode, ' 
"went  on  taxing  to  beautify  Jerusalem,  and  the  result  was, 
it  bursted  up  the  ten  tribes  of  Israel,  and  left  Judea  and 
Jerusalem  high  and  dry."  Covode  was  known  as  Ahab, 
from  his  frequent  and  pungent  references  to  that  party. 
But  Slote's  ways,  dress,  and  mannerisms  are  wonderfully 
like  the  average  Congressman's;  but  I  will  not  say  that  for 
his  moral  tone.  The  expressions  of  these  half-loose  pub- 
lic trustees  are  hardly  to  be  taken  as  full  indexes  of  their 
generous  and  genial  character.  As  the  quaint  Sir  Thom- 
as Browne  once  said  of  his  own  style,  "  Many  expressions 
are  merely  typical,  and  to  be  taken  in  a  soft  and  flexible 
sense."  Many  allowances  are  to  be  made  for  the  stormy 
passions  of  a  body  representing  such  diverse  interests. 
Our  Congress  can  not  for  that  reason  be,  like  the  Italian 
Parliament,  as  dull  as  the  lake  that  slumbers  in  the  storm. 
No  fugitive  or  cloistered  virtue  can  live  in  such  an  arena, 
where  are  exhibited  so  much  ardor  and  elan.  You  must 
meet  the  adversary,  not  in  the  impersonal  editorial  or  the 
one-sided  pulpit,  not  in  the  controversial  tractate  or  the 
quiet  thunder  of  the  big  quarto,  but  face  to  face.  There 
can  be  no  slinking^no  hiding.  The  garland  of  the  par- 
liamentary race  must  be  won  through  the  heat  and  dust 
of  active  personal  conflict. 

In  making  this  analysis  and  collation  of  the  humors  of 
such  an  arena,  the  writer  is  conscious  of  its  meagreness. 
The  spoken  word  has  nothing  of  the  immortality  of  the 
written  word.  It  does  not  live  a  life  beyond  life.  Tradi- 
tion can  not,  does  not,  convey  its  impression.  The  very 


MISCELLANEOUS    LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS.  347 

ecstasy  of  its  enjoyment  by  the  orator  unfits  him  after- 
ward, as  it  unfits  his  reporter,  to  place  his  evanescent  hu- 
mors upon  the  same  scroll  with  sedate  thought.  Still, 
enough  has  been  distilled  from  the  conduct  of  Parliament 
and  Congress  to  show  that  legislative  life  is  not  made  up 
of  dull,  cheerless,  sunless  commonplaces. 

We  might  wish  in  our  legislative  discussions  for  more 
variety  in  style,  and  now  and  then  for  some  quaintness  or 
felicity  of  expression  in  place  of  the  old  state  paper  and 
heavy  jargon.  Why  can  not  some  one  change  the  mo- 
notony of  the  public  formula  ?  Why  must  the  question 
be  always  put  just  so,  and  the  clerk  read  in  a  high  dead 
level?  Why  should  a  motion  to  adjourn  be  made  with- 
out the  slightest  regard  to  the  inflection  of  the  voice  or 
the  object  of  the  motion  ? 

I  know  that  the  hard  features  of  our  practical  time  for- 
bid that  eloquence  whose  golden  zone  clasps  the  Muses. 
The  finest  feathers  have  been  plucked  from  our  bird  of 
oratory.  He  is  fixed  to  the  earth.  There  are  no  more 
apostrophes  or  invocations ;  no  luscious  fruit  of  Hesper- 
ides,  or  emblems  of  opulence  under  the  lamp  of  Aladdin ; 
no  mouth  dropping  pearls,  no  golden-lipped  sanctity,  no 
harps  upon  the  crystal  battlements.  Pan  is  dead.  Nat- 
ure has  departed  from  the  realm  of  Apollo.  The  pulpit 
itself  is  almost  closed  against  these  flights  of  fancy ;  but, 
for  all  this,  shall  there  be  no  more  oral  "fervors  of  the 
hour  ?"  Why  may  not  even  the  heaviest  cloud  of  statis- 
tics be  illumined  by  finest  lightning ;  or  why  may  not 
good  sense  be  uttered  with  witty  words  set  to  cheerful 
tones,  accompanied  with  merry  twinkles  ?  Is  fun  to  be 
exiled  because  adversity  comes  ?  Is  there  a  better  time 
for  it  than  in  adversity?  So  long  as  the  human  mind  is 
what  it  is,  so  long  will  humor  have  its  harp  of  a  thousand 


34$  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

strings.  Where  will  you  find  higher  symbols  of  nature 
than  in  the  dancing  light  and  laughing  waters?  Have 
not  humor  and  satire  the  sanction  of  Him  who  spake  as 
never  man  spake  ?  Were  His  parables  humorless  ?  Were 
they  not  modeled  on  the  beautiful  form  of  Oriental  fable? 
His  reproaches  to  the  long-faced,  bigoted  Pharisee,  were 
they  not  relished  by  the  mass  ?  Before  His  day  had  not 
Elijah  touched  the  godless  gods  of  Sidon  with  merciless 
irony  ?  No  such  examples  can  be  quoted  to  excuse  ir- 
reverency.  Nor  can  they  transmute  smartness  into  sanc- 
tity ;  but  a  .hearty  laugh  at  a  happy  lunge  at  vice  is  a 
species  of  jubilant  virtue. 

Oratory  should  follow  the  teachings  of  her  sister  art. 
In  painting,  the  artist  who  distributes  his  lights  and  shades 
best  shows  his  taste  and  skill  when  he  gives  relief  by  con- 
trast. The  dark  parts  of  his  canvas  would  fail  of  their 
intended  effect  if  the  light  parts  were  darkened.  Our  en- 
ergies as  a  people  need  the  relief  which  the  shadow  does 
not  bestow.  Public  speakers  are  not  exempt  from  the  or- 
dinary rules  of  art.  Our  enjoyments  in  this  life  should 
antedate  our  future  bliss.  \Ve  have  enough  clouds  of 
sorrow  here.  Let  us  fringe  their  dark  edges  with  sun- 
shine. Let  us  mellow  and  brighten  them  for  the  solace 
of  others,  if  not  for  the  joy  of  our  own  heart.  Grief  and 
melancholy  are  selfish.  All  nature  calls  for  hilarity.  To 
a  spirit  penetrated  with  its  subtle  essence  "  the  open  sky 
will  sit  upon  its  senses  like  a  sapphire  crown,  the  air  will 
be  its  robe  of  state,  the  earth  a  throne,  the  sea  a  mighty 
minstrel  playing  before  it,"  and  no  sphere  in  the  wide 
range  of  its  sympathies  will  be  kingless.  In  that  prov- 
ince of  human  activity  in  which  life,  liberty,  and  the  pur- 
suit of  happiness  are  the  ostensible  objects  of  guarantee — 
the  province  of  statesmanship — where  the  collisions  of 


MISCELLANEOUS    LEGISLATIVE    HUMORS.  349 

prejudice,  interest,  and  passion  are  in  constant  debate, 
while  there  may  be  no  need  for  the  cap  and  bells  of  the 
fool  or  the  acrobatic  entertainment  of  the  harlequin  and 
clown,  there  is  ever  an  urgency  for  those  gifts  which 
cheer,  brighten,  and  bless,  and  which  suffuse  through  so- 
ciety their  soft  radiance  like  the  sweet,  hallowing  influ- 
ences of  sunset. 


350  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 


XXIV. 

HUMORS  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN— WEEVIL,  AND  ITS 
CONSEQUENCES. 

"Neither  do  I  wholly  condemn  the  little  arts  and  devices  of  popu- 
larity. They  facilitate  the  carrying  of  many  points  of  moment ;  they 
keep  the  people  together  ;  they  refresh  the  mind  in  its  exertions,  and 
they  diffuse  occasional  gayety  over  the  severe  brow  of  moral  freedom. 
Every  politician  ought  to  sacrifice  to  the  Graces,  and  to  join  compli- 
ance with  Reason." — EDMUND  BURKE. 

IN  these  concluding  chapters,  the  purpose  of  this  vol- 
ume is  still  pursued,  /.  <?.,  to  answer  the  question,  Quid 
rides  ?  These  final  chapters  present  two  phases  of  our 
humor.  In  this  chapter  is  represented  that  large  oppor- 
tunity for  humor,  called  the  stump  ;  and  in  the  last  chap- 
ter the  audience  is  fit,  though  few,  for  it  is  dedicated  to  a 
scholarly  theme. 

In  this  chapter  an  experience  of  the  writer  is  recount- 
ed. Its  purpose  is  to  show  how  the  monarch  of  the 
American  hustings,  Governor  Corwin,  could  diffuse  gaye- 
ty over  what  Burke  calls  "  the  severe  brow  of  moral  free- 
dom." 

An  agricultural  State  which  had  for  years  lost  its  wheat 
crop,  is  on  the  stretch  of  hilarity  at  the  queer  diversion 
of  a  political  campaign.  But  where  thousands  laughed  at 
Governor  Corwin's  hilarity,  and  at  my  anti-weevil  specific 
for  political  disorders,  hardly  one  laughed  at  the  classical 
retort  of  a  witty  Massachusetts  scholar  applied  to  the 
same  victim  in  a  different  arena,  and  which  is  the  sub- 


HUMORS    OF   THE   CAMPAIGN,   ETC.  351 

ject  of  my  "conclusion."  Yet  both  these  illustrations 
of  our  humors  teach  how  diverse  and  divergent  are  the 
fountains  of  our  political  playfulness.  They  serve  to  dis- 
play the  fact  that  our  people  crave  the  gayety  of  the 
king's  jester,  while  they  perform  the  solemn  function  of 
sovereignty.  They  tend  to  show  as  well  the  effective 
uses  to  which  parliamentary  speakers  may  apply  the  un- 
restrained humor  of  their  campaign,  as  the  trained  wit  of 
their  culture. 

Through  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  unremitting 
public  speaking,  the  writer  has  had  an  abundance  of  fo- 
rensic vicissitudes.  Good  humor  has  saved  him  often 
from  defeat,  and  always  from  disappointment.  A  volume 
would  not  suffice  in  which  to  sheaf  and  garner  these  way- 
side frolics  of  the  campaign.  From  the  lumber  mills  of 
Maine  to  the  gold  hills  of  California ;  from  the  thjckly 
settled  wards  of  the  metropolis  to  the  pleasant  homes  of 
the  Middle-state  farmers,  and  amidst  every  variety  of  our 
mosaic  population,  he  has  found  that  irrepressible  love 
of  humor  which  swept  distemper  from  the  busy  and 
bitter  campaigns  incident  to  our  active  suffrage.  This 
spirit  has  "  made  the  chalice  of  the  big,  round  year  run 
o'er  with  gladness."  Rarely  has  the  bitter  hyssop  crown- 
ed the  cup.  In  all  the  memories  which  arise  of  these 
years,  those  which  remain  most  permanently  are  the  lu- 
dicrous accidents,  situations,  and  characters,  and  the  nat- 
ural and  acquired  absurdities  which  gave  pleasure,  with- 
out stint  or  spite.  These  diffusive  expositions  of  laugh- 
ter require  little  more  than  a  natural  turn  for  acting,  add- 
ed to  a  retentive  memory  and  some  sense  of  logical  ap- 
plication. They  have  no  literature.  They  have  involu- 
tions of  meaning,  which  require  little  or  no  clue  to  fol-  < 
low.  They  have  the  diffusion  and  sparkle  of  burlesque 


352  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

and  anecdote,  without  the  splendors  of  rhetoric  or  the 
raptures  of  inspiration.  But  who  will  deny  them  a  place 
among  the  pyrotechnics,  if  not  the  potencies,  of  our  free- 
speaking  land  and  active  age.  True,  the  art  of  "stump- 
ing" is  almost  a  lost  one.  The  days  of  Gentry,  Prentiss, 
Wise,  Hamer,  Hale,  Douglas,  John  Van  Buren,  Lincoln, 
Baker,  and  Nye,  like  the  days  of  chivalry,  are  gone. 
"  Moral  freedom  "  is  now  in  the  care  of  the  newspaper 
and  telegraph.  But  why  expect  popular  oratory  to  re- 
main ?  As  a  tradition  only,  it  may  have  a  nebulous 
memory.  But  if  Voltaire  could  find  all  the  bright  sto- 
ries of  Canute,  Charles  V.,  Henry  IV.,  and  a  hundred 
other  sovereigns,  in  Athenaeus  and  the  old. authors,  told 
of  the  kings  and  princes  of  antiquity ;  if  he  could  say 
of  America  that  when  Columbus  discovered  it  every  one 
had  known  of  it  for  a  long  time ;  what  ambiguity  may 
we  not  expect  during  our  next  centennial  period  clinging 
to  the  marvelous  workings  of  free  speech  and  its  con- 
comitant graces  during  the  past  centennial  cycle  ? 

From  a  large  repertoire  of  personal  recollections,  may 
I  be  permitted  to  add  my  "  anti-weevil  campaign  ?"  It  has 
been  hard  to  select  one  of  sufficient  point  and  gravity  to 
illustrate  this  chapter. 

I  had  been  elected  to  Congress  in  1856,  on  the  Bu- 
chanan ticket.  But,  somehow,  I  was  a  "Douglas  man," 
though  hardly  a  man  at  that  time  in  political  experience. 
Kansas,  bleeding  and  what  not,  was  rantipoled  after  us 
on  our  advent  in  Washington,  in  December,  1857.  I 
was  among  the  first,  indeed  the  very  first,  to  break  the 
ice  after  Douglas's  anti-Lecompton  speech  against  the 
Kansas  policy  of  the  Administration.  It  was  also  the 
first  speech  in  the  new  hall ;  but  it  is  memorable  to  me 
for  other  reasons.  That  speech  cost  me  much  anxiety 


HUMORS    OF   THE    CAMPAIGN,  ETC.  353 

and  a  couple  of  postmasters.  The  same  "chop"  which 
fed  some  hungry  partisans  cut  off  others.  The  attack  on 
that  speech  was  terrific.  Points  of  order  bristled  like 
quills  upon  Shakspeare's  pet  porcupine.  General  Quit- 
man  ;  Bocock,  of  Virginia  ;  Jones,  of  Tennessee  ;  Judge 
Hughes,  of  Indiana,  et  alii,  first  tried  to  prevent  my  speak- 
ing at  all.  How  I  managed  to  get  through  I  can  hardly 
tell.  I  have  a  dreamy  sense,  while  trembling  like  an  asp- 
en, of  being  recruited  by  the  sonorous  voice  of  Gener- 
al Banks  and  the  rotund  form  of  Humphrey  Marshall. 
They  shielded  me  on  the  points  of  order. 

After  much  acrimony  a  compromise,  called  the  English 
bill,  was  introduced  by  "  Bill  English,"  of  Indiana.  I 
voted  for  it.  It  was  thought  to  be  a  safe  middle  course. 
Eheu !  Then  began  my  woes.  How  little  they  seem 
now,  since  the  great  events  of  the  war !  I  had  to  run  be- 
tween two  fires — the  Buchanan  Old  Lines  and  the  Doug- 
las Young  Americas.  I  have  not  bolted  much  since. 

My  woes  were  worse  when  I  reached  Columbus,  in  the 
summer  of  1858.  That  I  was  elected  that  year  from  the 
capital  Ohio  district  is  to  me  a  marvel.  A  youthful  and 
unsophisticated  sincerity  saved  me. 

How  I  was  elected  is  found  in  my  little  story.  When 
the  campaign  began,  I  was  met  by  the  Republicans  de- 
nouncing the  English  bill  and  all  who  voted  for  it.  I 
was  a  most  peculiarly  blistered  traitor.  The  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise  was  not  so  hard  to  meet.  In 
my  agony  I  sought  seclusion.  From  my  father's  farm, 
in  Muskingum  County,  "  I  bid  the  lovely  scenes  at  dis- 
tance Hail !"  My  father  was  a  farmer,  and  was  then  har- 
vesting. He  boasted  about  a  peculiar  kind  of  grain.  A 
relative  in  a  distant  county  had  furnished  a  kind  of 
wheat,  not  from  the  Mediterranean,  but  not  unlike  that 


354  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

cereal.  One  thing,  however,  was  sure  about  it — it  was 
weevil-proof.  That  pest  had  ravaged  the  richest  fields 
of  the  State.  Licking  and  Scioto  valleys,  my  own  dis- 
trict, had  suffered.  Was  I  not  then,  as  now,  a  friend  of 
agriculture?  Have  I  not  disputed  its  honors  with  Mr. 
Greeley,  in  the  farming  lands  of  New  York — city  ? 

Attempts  had  been  made  to  prevent  weevil,  to  scare 
weevil,  to  obliterate  weevil.  Birds  had  been  allowed  free 
lunch  on  weevil.  Every  effort  was  in  vain.  The  weevil 
became  the  chronic  plague  of  Central  Ohio.  My  own 
parent  had  found  the  great  panacea — not  a  panacea  ex- 
actly, but  a  prevention.  How  I  leaped  to  it !  I  men- 
tioned that  I  was  a  friend  of  agriculture.  Millions  would 
be  saved  to  that  occupation.  It  was  July.  The  har- 
vest had  been  gathered.  Whereas  the  year  before  there 
had  been  dearth,  through  the  weevil,  to  all  the  paternal 
acres,  my  father  had  found  that  the  weevil  had  failed  to 
prey  this  season  in  the  most  vulnerable  spots.  I  said, 
"  Good  !  this  shall  be  utilized.  I  will  not  hide  this  wheat 
under  a  bushel."  I  forthwith  requested  my  female  rela- 
tives to  make  sacks  by  the  hundred.  I  ordered  several 
bushels  of  that  wheat.  I  had  labels  printed  : 


-,  M.  C. 


ANTI-WEEVIL  WHEAT. 


I  had,  in  my  exultation,  forgotten  the  postal  laws.  I  had 
neglected  to  advise  the  Agricultural  Department.  I  had 
the  sacks  filled.  I  directed  them,  miscellaneously,  all 
over  the  district.  What  were  Republicans  or  Democrats 


HUMORS   OF   THE   CAMPAIGN,  ETC.  355 

to  me!  "Weevil  or  anti-weevil" — that  was  the  ques- 
tion. 

I  was  threatened  with  prosecution  by  the  Federal  au- 
thorities. But  still  the  weevil-proof  wheat  was  carried 
over  Licking,  Pickaway,  and  Franklin  counties.  The 
campaign  waxed  hot  in  September.  A  Democrat  had 
bolted,  and  was  to  run  against  me.  He  was  a  fluent  law- 
yer, and  quite  ready  to  arraign  me  on  Lecompton  and 
the  English  bill.  Indeed,  in  our  first  "joint  high"  dis- 
cussion, he  did  arraign  me.  But  the  gravamen  of  his 
charge  was  that  I  had  violated  the  postal  laws  in  send- 
ing out  among  the  farmers  a  bogus  kind  of  wheat.  He 
harangued  the  people  to  show  that  it  was  not  anti-weevil; 
it  was  full  of  cheat,  weevil,  and  all  sorts  of  unclean  things. 
My  sacks  were  ransacked,  my  wheat  sifted.  It  was 
ground  between  the  upper  and  nether  millstones  of  popu- 
lar opprobrium.  The  campaign  grew  hot  and  hotter.  I 
became  alarmed.  Posters  were  stuck  on  trees,  sheds, 
and  tavern  sign -posts  in  all  the  townships  and  towns  : 
"Weevil!  weevil!  Down  with 'the  weevil  candidate!" 
Handbills  were  circulated,  charging  me  with  an  insidious 
desire  to  ruin  the  agriculture  of  an  honest,  hard-working 
people.  Central  committees  issued  private  circulars  and 
statistical  tables,  explaining  the  deleterious  influence  of 
weevil  upon  the  farming  interest.  The  staff  of  life  was 
called  in  as  a  crutch  to  help  my  competitor.  Orators 
harangued  crowds,  in  school-houses  and  in  town-halls,  on 
the  deleterious  nature  of  the  Congressman  and  weevil. 
The  first  was  an  enemy  to  Free  Kansas,  the  second  to  fair 
agriculture.  The  best  talent  of  Ohio,  then  full  of  elocution- 
ary genius,  was  evoked  to  show  the  connection  between 
Lecompton  and  wheat — weevil  and  the  English  bill. 

My  friends  were  in  despair.     Our  county  central  com- 


35^  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

mittees  were  demoralized.  Hasty  meetings  were  called. 
Men  unused  to  despair — old  Jackson  hickories,  never  up- 
rooted in  our  Democratic  forest  by  any  adverse  blasts — 
shook  their  heads  wisely,  like  Burleighs  ;  their  young  and 
sanguine  candidate  had  spoiled  the  campaign.  It  was 
bad  enough  to  be  between  Douglas  and  Buchanan,  and 
take  the  fire  of  both,  and  of  the  Republicans  also ;  but 
weevil !  weevil !  was  too  much. 

I  tried  to  explain.  I  tried  to  mention,  in  a  meek  way, 
that  my  paternal  relative  had  tried  it.  Was  I  not  a  dis- 
interested friend  of  that  farming  interest  which  had  once 
elected  me,  and  whose  continued  suffrage  and  crops  were 
clear  to  my  heart  ?  But  it  would  not  do.  What,  in  the 
name  of  Jackson,  and  so  forth,  was  our  candidate  about 
when  he  broke  the  postal  laws  to  send  his  atrocious 
wheat  over  the  district?  If  it  were  good  wheat  even— 
if  it  were  weevil-proof — how  could  the  fact  be  proved  un- 
til after  the  election,  next  year?  That  had  not  occurred 
to  me. 

All  over  the  district,  where  my  weevil  had  gone,  my 
sacks  were  emptied,  and  bitter,  vindictive,  partisan  op- 
ponents had  filled  the  empty  sacks  with  the  scrapings 
of  their  barns,  their  barrels,  and  their  boxes.  Affidavits 
were  procured  by  my  friends,  which  stated  that  on  a 
dark  and  rainy  night  two  Radicals  were  seen  going  to  a 
barn  with  a  lantern,  where  they  emptied  my  invaluable 
seed-wheat  upon  the  floor,  and  filled  the  sacks  with  the 
awfulest  offal.  My  wheat,  which  was  proof  strong  as 
holy  writ,  was  dishonored  by  trifles  light  as  air.  It  was 
shown  up  to  prejudiced  and  gaping  voters  as  "cheat." 
It  was  worse  than  chaff.  I  will  not  say  what  these  bit- 
ter partisans  mixed  with  my  unadulterated  seed.  I  recall 
especially  one  orator.  His  name  absorbed  a  quarter  of 


HUMORS   OF   THE   CAMPAIGN,  ETC.  357 

the  alphabet,  and  he  made  the  weevil  question  para- 
mount. Was  there  any  spot  from  Fallsburg  to  New  Hol- 
land, running  over  two  hundred  miles  of  arable  land ; 
from  the  hazel-bushes  of  Red  Brush  to  the  corn-fields  of 
that  classic  soil  where  Logan,  "the  white  man's  friend," 
did  not  speak  what  Jefferson  reported — was  there  one 
man,  woman,  or  child  who  had  not  heard  the  voice  of 
that  orator  denouncing  my  weevil  fraud  ? 

But  I  look  back  with  delight  to  those  friends  who  exer- 
cised their  faith  in  my  agricultural  rectitude.  Faith  is  so 
good  in  the  dark.  As  the  election-day  approached,  this 
faith  became  more  necessary.  Nothing  would  do  but  I 
must  meet  my  opponent,  in  debate,  on  the  weevil  ques- 
tion. It  was  my  salvation.  Before  the  day  of  debate 
Governor  Corwin  was  sent  for.  The  campaign  was  in 
his  vein.  He  seemed  to  appreciate  its  points.  He  was 
a  devotee  of  that 

"  Goddess  fair  and  free, 

In  heaven  yclept  Euphrosyne — 

By  men,  heart-easing  Mirth." 

He  came.  He  had  been  Governor,  Senator,  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury ;  but,  most  of  all,  had  he  been,  and  then 
was,  the  rarest  of  all  the  Buckeye  humorists  and  orators. 

First  he  went  to  Circleville.  "What  shall  I  speak 
about  ?"  said  he  to  the  committee.  That  body,  in  full 
chorus,  responded  :  "  Weevil.  Our  member  is  dodging 
the  Lecompton  issue ;  he  ignores  the  English  bill ;  he 
seeks  to  defraud  honest  agriculture  by  seeking  votes 
through  weevil.  Governor,  hold  him  up  to  the  scorn  of 
an  indignant  community."  Corwin  liked  the  issue.  He 
told  me  afterward  that  he  enjoyed  that  campaign. 

"Fellow-citizens,"  he  began,  "your  member  has  voted 
on  both  sides  of  the  Lecompton  question.  He  desires  you 


35^  WHY  WE   LAUGH. 

to  forget  how  he  disliked  Buchanan  and  deserted  Douglas. 
He  would  persuade  you  that  he  is  for  Free  Kansas,  and 
that  if  the  people  can't  vote  directly  for  it,  under  the  En- 
glish bill  they  may  vote  it  down.  How  does  he  do  this  ?" 
At  this  pause  the  governor  produces  my  anti-weevil  sack. 
He  shows  the  chaff,  cheat,  dirt,  rust,  and  so  forth,  clandes- 
tinely introduced,  for  political  effect,  into  my  innocent 
sack ;  and  with  one  of  those  wonderful  grimaces  and 
gestures,  which  would  have  made  his  fortune  on  the  com- 
ic stage,  he  says :  "  Your  member  asks  you  to  vote  for 
him  as  a  saddle-bag  candidate,  on  both  sides  of  Lecomp- 
ton.  How  would  he  persuade  you  ?  l  Won't  you  take  a 
little  weevil?'"  The  roars  of  laughter  among  my  ene- 
mies were  indescribable  for  noise  and  extent. 

When  he  went  to  Newark  to  speak  in  the  fair-grounds, 
I  was  so  audacious  as  to  go  out  to  hear.  I  fastened  my 
horse  and  buggy  in  the  woods,  crept  near  quietly,  hiding 
under  a  slouched  hat,  and,  with  a  hickory-tree  as  a  bar- 
ricade, I  sat  on  the  grass  in  hearing  distance.  When  I 
reached  the  grounds  there  were  five  thousand  excited  Re- 
publicans already  assembled.  There  is  unusual  commo- 
tion in  the  throngs.  The  governor  is  driven  up  in  a  ba- 
rouche with  six  white  horses.  On  each  horse,  above  the 
ear,  is  a  flag — "Down  with  the  Weevil  Candidate!"  Ban- 
ners are  borne  up  by  the  masses,  amidst  shouts,  bear- 
ing mottoes  :  "  For  Congress,  Lucius  Case,  the  Farmers' 
Friend,  and  the  Opponent  of  Weevil."  The  stand,  too,  is 
ornamented  with  flags.  On  them  are  various  emblems 
and  mottoes  :  "  Bread  is  the  Staff  of  Life.  Democracy 
would  Poison  it  with  Weevil !"  "  Sunset  has  Gone  Down 
behind  a  Wheat-field  !"  "  Free  Kansas  and  a  Fair  Har- 
vest!" Quite  a  tumult  arises  on  the  stand  as  the  Re- 
publican magnates  rise  to  receive  Governor  Corwin. 


HUMORS    OF   THE   CAMPAIGN,  ETC.  359 

The  band  strikes  up  "  See  the  Conquering  Hero 
Comes." 

A  chairman  was  appointed.  I  knew  him  well.  He 
was  my  aversion.  He  was  from  Granville,  a  Republican 
township,  which  always  gave  over  two  hundred  against 
me,  although  there  were  several  churches  and  a  college 
there,  and  but  one  tavern,  where  no  liquor  was  sold  ex- 
cept slyly.  I  may  mention  that  I  got  some  support  there 
from  a  water-cure.  But  that  chairman  was  my  bete  noire. 
He  had  often  put  questions  to  me  about  taxation  and  ra- 
tio of  representation,  though  I  learned  that  he  never  paid 
any  taxes,  and  only  represented  bankruptcy.  Still,  he 
was  a  model  of  a  class  of  politicians  of  the  pietistic  sort. 

I  peep  around  my  tree  to  hear  his  opening.  He  says  : 
"  Feolleow-citizens, — Before  Governor  Corwine  begins  his 
address  I  desire  to  propeound  an  interreogatory.  Is  there 
any  one  here  in  the  crowd  who  has  any  of  the  weevil 
wheat  sent  out  by  our  member  of  Congress  ?" 

At  this  point  a  dozen  sacks  are  pitched  into  the  stand. 
I  trembled  for  my  reputation.  "A  rt?;/nnittee  is  sitting 
on  the  hind  eend  of  this  stand,  examinin'  into  the  genoo- 
ineness  of  this  new-fangled  wheat.  [Cheers.]  We  will 
unmask  this  demagogue  who  sends  it  out.  He  pretends 
to  be  the  farmers'  friend.  He  is  the  enemy  of  their 
heomes  and  hearths.  He  would  crawl,  like  the  animiles 
of  Holy  Writ,  into  the  very  kneading- troughs  of  the 
honest  people  he  has  betrayed  on  the  Lecompton  bill. 
[Cheers.]  Is  the  committee  ready  to  report  ?" 

At  this  point  the  committee  approach  the  front  of  the 
stand.  They  are  led  by  a  long,  gangling,  Ichabod  Crane 
sort  of  person,  with  a  highly  nasal  twang  and  the  sing- 
song of  exhortation.  Before  he  begins,  the  string  band, 
consisting  of  three  fiddles,  a  fife,  and  a  tenor-drum,  strikes 


360  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

up  "The  Girl  I  Left  Behind  Me."  I  sympathize  with 
the  tune  and  the  girl ;  but  the  music  does  not  soften  the 
features  of  that  chairman.  He  advises  the  people  thus  : 
"  MF.  Cheerman  and  Fellow-citizens, — The  committee  ap- 
pinted  to  examine  this  wheat  have  concleuded  their  la- 
bors, and  are  unanimously  of  opinion  there's  weevil  in  it." 
[Cheers.]  After  which  a  stray  Democrat  from  Newton 
township,  a  little  lively  on  the  subject  of  grain  and  its 
juices,  proposed  to  whip  the  crowd.  He  was  for  "Wee- 
vil and  the  Constitution,  and  could  lam  any  'Abolish'  in 
that  meeting." 

It  is  needless  to  say  how  the  meeting  treated  this  friend, 
and  Governor  Corwin  that  report.  He  began,  as  he  said, 
seriously  on  Ceres.  The  joke  was  too  classical.  He 
pictures  the  condition  of  Kansas — the  blight  of  slavery 
on  its  virgin  soil,  the  men  of  blood  and  crime — and  rises 
to  his  climax  at  every  turn:  "and  for  these  grievances 
your  Congressman  proposes — what  ?  To  devastate  your 
fair  fields  with  weevil."  [Cheers.] 

But  I  can  not  dwell  on  this  phase  of  the  campaign.  I 
had  to  meet  my  competitor.  When  I  was  carried  off  the 
stand  by  an  enthusiastic  and  partial  crowd,  the  last  I 
heard  him  say,  in  his  closing  quarter  of  an  hour,  were  the 
words,  "  WEEVIL,  weevil,  weevil ;"  while  hurtling  through 
the  air,  at  the  heads  of  speaker,  moderator,  and  commit- 
tees, from  the  hands  of  indignant  Democrats,  were  innu- 
merable sacks  of  weevil.  I  learned  afterward  that  a  cen- 
sus of  that  weevil  shower  was  taken,  and  some  fifty  more 
sacks  than  I  had  ever  sent  forth  were  miraculously  taken 
up  that  day. 

This  discussion  had  changed  the  tide.  I  gave  an  hon- 
est account  to  the  people  of  that  wheat.  I  begged  to  al- 
low the  genuine  article  one  year  to  grow.  I  ventured  to 


HUMORS   OF    THE   CAMPAIGN,  ETC.  361 

predict  that  fields,  so  often  devastated  by  this  insect  ene- 
my of  agriculture  would  fructify  again.  I  explained  that 
it  was  a  larva  of  the  pentamerous  beetles  of  the  tribe  tri- 
choptera.  This  was  satisfactory.  I  described  the  snout 
of  the  animal — how  it  digs  into  the  innocent  grain,  and 
how  the  grubs  burrow,  when  hatched,  and  consume  the 
seed.  Placing  my  hand  upon  my  vest,  I  told  how  my 
heart  yearned  to  eradicate  this  enemy  of  agriculture  from 
the  wheat-field.  "  What !"  I  exclaimed,  "  when  I  find  a 
class  of  wheat  impervious  to  these  enemies  of  your  daily 
bread,  am  I  to  keep  it  a  secret  ?  Never !  Let  Kansas 
be  blighted,  and  be  bled  with  civil  conflict,  but  save,  oh 
save,  the  fruitful  fields  of  lovely  Licking !  Why,  fellow- 
citizens,  the  very  woodpeckers  are  the  enemy  of  this  your 
enemy.  The  red  oriole  and  the  blackbird  [laughter]  alike 
detest  and  destroy  it.  I  would  rather  vote  for  a  wood- 
pecker than  for  a  man  who  ridicules  my  feeble  attempt 
to  stay  the  ravages  of  this  insectivorous  plague  !  Let  us 
raise,  on  our  banners  and  in  our  voices,  the  inspiring  bat- 
tle-cry, "  Down  with  Weevil,  and  up  with  Democracy !" 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  this  shibboleth  was  caught 
up.  Every  Democratic  meeting  and  procession  was 
made  resonant  with  the  anti-weevil  cry.  Every  hickory 
pole,  rising  above  a  sea  of  Democratic  heads  from  a  hick- 
ory wagon  in  a  Democratic  procession,  was  surmounted 
by  a  sack,  inscribed  with  the  name  of  an  "Anti-weevil 
candidate  for  Congress,"  and  the  motto  of  "  Squatter 
Sovereignty,  and  Good  Crops." 

I  was  elected.  I  doubled  my  former  majority.  The 
next  year  proved  me  to  be  a  friend  of  agriculture.  My 
wheat,  when  genuine,  was  free  from  the  insect.  Millions 
have  been  saved  to  those  counties.  That  wheat  is  yet 
grown.  Republicans  clamored  for  it  as  children  for  Mrs. 

16 


362  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

Winslow's  sirup;  but  it  took  several  seasons  before  Dem- 
ocrats would  allow  their  radical  neighbors  to  have  even 
seed-wheat  from  my  brand. 

On  my  return  from  Congress,  in  1859,  after  harvest,  I 
addressed  a  meeting,  and  boldly  put  this  question :  "  If 
my  anti-  weevil  wheat  has  proved  the  salvation  of  your 
grain  harvests,  so  have  my  anti-Lecompton  votes  proved 
the  salvation  of  Kansas.  Is  there  any  one  here  who  will 
deny  that  wheat  to  be  weevil-proof?  If  so,  let  him  stand 
up."  A  fellow,  dressed  in  a  wamus,  from  the  head  wa- 
ters of  Black  Lick,  cried  out :  "  Not  only  weevil-proof,  but 
must-proof,  cheat-proof,  and  darn  my  boots  if  it  isn't  hog- 
proof  too  !  My  hogs  got  into  the  field,  and  would  neither 
eat  nor  root !" 


CLASSIC    HUMOR — A    HOMERIC   STUDY.  363 


XXV. 

CLASSIC  HUMOR— A  HOMERIC  STUDY. 

. "  When  Thersites  leads  the  Greeks,  Troy  does  not  place  Hector 
on  the  walls." 

THIS  sarcasm,  substantially,  has  twice  been  used  in 
Congress,  and  on  each  occasion  by  Massachusetts  mem- 
bers. Once  when  Mr.  Caleb  Gushing  made  his  first 
speech,  and  when  he  was  fiercely  assailed  by  "  Old  Ben 
Hardin,"  of  Kentucky,  it  was  used  in  defense  of  Mas- 
sachusetts. The  report  of  that  debate  is  meagre.  We 
are  indebted  to  Mr.  Savage,  in  his  "  Living  Represent- 
tive  Men,"  for  this  account  of  the  effect  of  the  sar- 
casm :  "  Mr.  Gushing,  referring  to  Mr.  Hardin's  habit 
of  quoting  to  the  House  from  Homer,  begged  leave 
to  refer  to  that  celebrated  author  for  an  illustration 
apropos  to  the  occasion.  He  regretted  to  observe  upon 
that  floor  a  disputant  who,  with  neither  the  courage  of 
Achilles  for  the  combat,  nor  the  wisdom  of  Ulysses  for 
the  council,  yet,  with  the  gray  hairs  of  Nestor  on  his 
head,  condescended  to  perpetually  play  the  part  of  the 
snarling  Thersites !  The  whole  House  broke  out  in  a 
burst  of  admiration  at  this  closing  sally  of  the  young  or- 
ator, while  the  galleries  sent  up  a  loud  shout  of  ap- 
plause, accompanied  with  clapping  of  hands  and  waving 
of  handkerchiefs  by  the  ladies." 

In  the  form  first  given,  it  was  used  again,  forty  years 
afterward.  It  came  from  the  caustic  tongue  of  another 


364  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

Massachusetts  member,  in  reply  to  a  New  York  member. 
On  each  occasion  the  victim  of  the  polished  poniard  had 
more  than  intimated  that  some  other  Massachusetts  mem- 
ber should  step  to  the  front  to  defend  the  State.  The 
implication,  of  course,  was  that  the  member  then  upon 
the  floor  was  a  subordinate.  His  amour  propre  and  leg- 
islative parity  being  thus  challenged,  the  reply  was  not 
only  proper  and  parliamentary,  but  pungent  and  puni- 
tory.  That  is  to  say,  it  was  this  :  on  the  supposition, 
first,  that  Thersites  was  not,  either  by  character  or  posi- 
tion, fit  to  make  the  assault  upon  Troy ;  and  if  he  were, 
that  then  there  was  no  necessity  for  Troy  to  place  her 
best  man  forward ;  and,  second,  that  the  member  from 
Kentucky — "  Ben  Hardin  " — and  the  member  from  New 
York — nominis  umbra  (out  of  modesty) — were  in  a  simi- 
lar case  with  Thersites,  the  characterless  and  blatant  Ar- 
give. 

My  purpose  now  is  to  vindicate  Thersites,  not  to  ques- 
tion the  propriety  of  the  witticism.  Wit  is  reckless  of 
moral  consequences.  All  it  endeavors  is  to  make  the 
victim  wince,  and  thus  to  crown  the  victor.  In  this  case 
this  result  was  reached.  The  salt  was  Attic,  in  a  double 
sense.  Whether  the  Bardstown  orator  or  the  New  York 
member  was  a  proper  object  to  be  thus  pickled,  is  not 
the  "  Homeric  study "  proposed.  Kentucky  is,  or  was, 
proud  of  her  eloquent  and  humorous  son.  Although 
born  in  Pennsylvania,  his  public  life  of  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  beginning  with  the  close  of  the  last  war  with 
England,  and  ending  in  1837,  is  as  much  a  part  of  Ken- 
tucky pride  as  the  blue  grass  of  her  "  sweet  pastures," 
or  the  Bourbon  of  her  "  still  waters."  It  would  be  nei- 
ther pertinent  nor  necessary  to  vindicate  his  fame. 

Nor  would  it  be  within  the  narrow  compass  of  this  Ho- 


CLASSIC   HUMOR — A   HOMERIC   STUDY.  365 

meric  study  to  remark  upon  the  wonderful  coincidence  of 
two  Massachusetts  members  using  the  same  elegant  and 
classic  thrust  upon  a  similar  occasion,  with  such  an  inter- 
vention of  time.  Such  coincidences  are  easily  accounted 
for,  without  the  elder  Weller's  experience,  and  without  as- 
signing plagiarism.  The  last  member  may  have  heard  of 
the  first  member's  repartee ;  but  should  this  estop  him 
from  repeating  it,  if  the  occasion  were  fit  ?  Such  coinci- 
dences are  not  rare.  At  another  time,  about  the  close  of 
our  civil  war,  one  more  marvelous  happened.  While  Mr. 
Dawes,  in  the  House,  was  quoting  the  famous  verse  about 
the  lion  roaring  in  the  lobby,  at  the  identical  moment  the 
lamented  Sumner  was  applying  the  same  jingle  to  anoth- 
er matter  in  the  Senate. 

Nor  would  it  change  the  flavor  or  destroy  the  virtue 
of  the  Homeric  allusion,  which  I  have  quoted — if  one 
should  show  Thersites  to  be  the  very  cream  of  goodness, 
the  soul  of  honor,  the  bravest  of  heroes— -facile  princeps 
among  the  kings  whose  boats  were  by  the  shore,  and 
whose  myrmidons  were  beleaguering  Troy.  Admit  that 
the  general  reputation  of  Thersites  was  different — that  he 
was  not  a  turbulent  brawler,  or  a  misshapen  buffoon — still 
the  poignancy  remains.  It  is  just  as  damaging.  It  will 
remain  so,  whether  the  reputation  of  Thersites  be  re- 
deemed or  not. 

After  so  many  centuries,  this  task  of  redemption  would 
seem  difficult ;  and  if  accomplished,  cut  bono  ?  Besides, 
it  may  be  said  that  Thersites  was  only  a  figment  of  the 
Homeric  imagination.  But  if  scholars  will  continue  to 
discuss  the  peculiarities  of  Hamlet  and  Gobbo,  Pickwick 
and  Ralph  Nickleby  ;  if  commentators  will  work  to  show 
the  mental  qualities  and  moral  motives  of  Lady  Macbeth 
and  Becky  Sharp,  creatures  of  the  fancy,  so  as  the  better 


366  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

to  elucidate  them,  and  in  the  light  of  their  authors  to 
draw  other  and  nicer  lessons — why  may  we  not,  even  at 
this  late  day,  do  justice  to  Homer  by  rescuing  Thersites 
from  his  unpleasant  fame  ?  Nero  had  friends  who  placed 
immortelles  on  his  tomb.  Examine  history,  and  you  will 
learn  from  Tacitus  that  Nero  did  not  fiddle  when  Rome 
was  burning ;  because  there  were  then  no  riddles ;  and 
because  on  that  occasion  he  was  singing  a  song  at  his 
theatre,  to  glorify  Bacchus  and  the  vine,  with  a  roistering 
company.  But  when  the  fire  raged,  and  the  people  were 
starving  and  homeless,  Nero  promptly  ordered  grain  from 
all  Italy,  and  opened  his  extensive  gardens  to  the  desti- 
tute. If  Nero  has  his  vindication,  why  not  Thersites  ? 

Besides,  has  not  an  astute  lawyer  shown  that  Judas 
Iscariot  was  not  so  arch  a  traitor  as  he  is  represented  ? 
Was  he  not  shown  to  have  so  much  conscience  and  good- 
ness, that  he  went  out  and  hanged  himself?  Did  he  not 
turn  the  thirty  pieces  of  silver  over  to  a  good  object? 

Many  illustrations  are  to  be  found  showing  that  the 
devil  himself  is  not  so  black  as  he  is  painted,  if  indeed 
he  is  black  at  all ;  nay,  if  indeed  he  is  a  personage  at  all. 
Burns  defended  him,  and  rather  liked  to  imitate  some  of 
his  friskiness. 

Have  not  our  ideas  of  history  been  rudely  overthrown 
of  late  years  ?  Scholarly  iconoclasts  have  shown  Herod- 
otus to  be,  not  the  father  of  history,  but  the  father  of  lies  ! 
Romulus  and  Remus  and  the  she -wolf  are  reduced  to 
myths.  Wilhelm  Tell  and  his  compatriots  are  in  peril  of 
losing  their  monuments  even  amidst  their  grand  mount- 
ains. For  all  that  we  know,  the  little  hatchet — not  to 
speak  of  Washington  and  his  juvenile  veracity — may,  be- 
fore another  centennial,  vanish  from  the  American  mem- 
ory. Facts  are  not  stubborn  things.  Time  wears  out 


CLASSIC    HUMOR— A    HOMERIC   STUDY.  367 

even  adamant;  and  that  which  was  thought  perennial 
proves  to  be  hardly  ennial,  or  hebdomadal,  or  ephemeral. 
What  endless  disputes  has  the  "Iliad"  aroused  !  They 
date  from  the  time  when  Solon,  Pisistratus,  and  Hippar- 
chus  caused  it  to  be  re-edited,  and  Aristotle  wrote  learn- 
edly upon  its  unities.  From  the  time  of  the  Alexandrian 
critics,  who  planted  their  obellus  or  dagger  (f)  into  the  fra- 
cas, down  to  the  time  when  the  German  scholar,  Wolf,  set 
all  Germany  by  the  ears  over  his  hypothesis,  the  question 
whether  Homer  was  an  abstraction  or  a  person,  or  sever- 
al persons,  with  as  many  birthplaces,  has  been  a  theme 
for  the  doubters.  De  Quincey  opened  his  ornate  discus- 
sion with  likening  the  inquiry  to  that  for  the  dark  fount- 
ains of  the  Nile.  It  is  not  yet  settled  when  Homer  sung. 
It  is  almost  as  indefinite  as  Professor  Clifford's  cosmog- 
ony as  to  how  long  the  earth  has  existed,  which  he  reck- 
ons at  one  hundred  millions  or  two  hundred  millions  of 
years  !  It  is  agreed  of  Homer  that  he  lived  somewhere 
between  Abraham  and  Solomon,  if  he  lived  at  all.  He 
had  sixteen  written  lives  after  death — all  but  two  have 
been  reduced  to  tradition ;  and  these  two  were  proven 
to  be  forgeries.  Whether  his  blindness  was  or  was  not 
a  trick  to  catch  pennies  and  assist  his  recitations,  as  he 
went  levanting  about  the  Mediterranean  with  his  hurdy- 
gurdy  ;  whether  he  was  really  blind  or  not ;  or  whether  it 
was  only  a  blind  to  say  he  was  ;  whether  he  ever  lived  ; 
and,  if  not,  whether  he  ever  died  ;  and,  if  he  died,  wheth- 
er of  vexation  because  he  could  not  answer  the  famous 
conundrum  of  the  fishermen  connected  with  his  name — 
these  problems  have  already  stirred  the  dialectics  of  all 
ages,  from  Plutarch  to  Bryant.  It  remains  yet  to  be  set- 
tled, the  terrible  riddle,  "  Is  Homer  a  hum,  and  the  Iliad 
a  hoax  ?"  However  settled,  it  does  not  deter  me  from  vin- 


368  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

dicating  Thersites,  especially  when  answering  the  ques- 
tion, Quid  rides  ?  On  any  hypothesis,  however,  as  to  the 
epic  —  whether,  like  the  Shakspearian  drama,  it  is  the 
work  of  one  or  of  many  minds — there  may  be  some  things 
alleged  as  sure  :  First,  that  he  was  born  early,  that  is, 
say,  a  thousand  years  or  so  before  Christ ;  or,  at  least, 
that  his  poems  were.  Second,  that  the  times  were  not  so 
very  bad  as  to  have  corrupted  the  language  by  luxury,  or 
enriched  it  by  multiplying  conditions  of  progress.  Third, 
that  the  Ionic  dialect,  in  which  he  composed,  was  a  fit 
garment  for  the  external  beauty  which  sun  and  sky,  land 
and  sea,  embroidered  to  his  eye,  provided  he  had  an  eye. 
Fourth,  that  when  he  wandered  about  the  ^Egean,  or  into 
Asia  Minor,  inspecting  the  walls  of  Troy  and  the  shores 
of  the  Hellespont ;  ascended  the  Nile,  or  voyaged  into 
Italy  and  Sicily — he  learned,  like  Socrates,  from  the  peo- 
ple, and  sympathized  with  them  ;  that  he  knew  the  slang 
of  the  sailors  and  the  ropes  of  the  ship ;  and,  that  he 
never  intended  to  elevate  the  meannesses  of  human  na- 
ture so  as  to  dignify  kingcraft  and  pillage;  in  fine,  that 
he  knew  that  Agamemnon  was  a  swell,  Achilles  a  deb- 
auchee, Paris  a  puppy,  Ulysses  a  fraud,  and  the  lazy 
thieves  and  spoilers  who  lay  loosely  around  Troy  for  over 
nine  years  were  just  what  Mr.  Bryant,  in  his  preface,  calls 
the  gods  who  prompted  and  directed  them — "debauched, 
mercenary,  rapacious,  and  cruel;  dwelling  in  a  world  in 
which  the  rules  of  right  and  the  maxims  necessary  to  the 
well-being  of  human  society  find  no  recognition."  It  is 
for  this  reason  that  Plato  ruled  out  of  his  ideal  republic 
the  literature  which  glorified  such  mock  heroes. 

If,  then,  Homer  existed,  and  was  the  good  man  and 
great  genius  we  love  to  believe,  and  these  various  condi- 
tions attach  to  his  muse,  he  had  a  conscious  purpose  in 


CLASSIC    HUMOR — A    HOMERIC   STUDY.  369 

constructing  out  of  the  lyric  elements  of  Grecian  filibus- 
tering, a  grand  moral. 

Has  it  not,  then,  occurred  to  the  reader  that  his  epic, 
when  read  between  the  lines,  is  a  recondite  and  severe 
satire  on  the  swash-buckler  and  the  tyrant  ?  May  it  not 
be  reasonably  inferred,  if  that  be  true,  that  his  real  hero 
is  the  martyr  who  suffered  at  the  hands  of  these  so-called 
heroes  ?  If  so,  Thersites  is  vindicated. 

Why,  it  was  not  till  lately  that  it  was  ascertained  that 
Sir  Thomas  More's  "  Utopia "  was  the  keen  irony  of  a 
philosophic  wit  upon  contemporaneous  governments. 
Homer's  pictures  of  the  wrathful  Achilles,  the  treacher- 
ous Paris,  the  truce-breaking  Pandarus,  and  the  general 
batch  of  brigadiers  who  were  in  that  Trojan  unpleasant- 
ness, were  meaningless  in  morality,  unless  they  were  in- 
tended to  disgust  the  ingenuous  Grecian  youth  with  the 
treacheries  and  atrocities,  rascalities  and  debaucheries, 
incident  to  war,  and  especially  to  that  war.  In  every 
book  of  his  epic,  Homer  takes  care  to  show  these  as  the 
salient  attributes  of  his  heroes.  When  he  leaves  these 
braggart  bullies  and  insignificant  sovereigns,  to  paint  the 
sweet  offices  of  friendship  and  the  gentle  graces  of  do- 
mestic love,  as  in  the  cases  of  Patroclus  and  Androma- 
che, did  he  not  endeavor  by  contrast  to  woo  the  wild, 
roving  spirit  of  young  Greece  to  the  calm  and  ennobling 
pursuits  of  culture  and  peace  ?  But  how  seldom  does  he 
grace  his  epic  with  these  inspiring  scenes  of  contented 
virtue !  All  through  the  poem  are  evidences  that  he 
meant  tc^  depict  the  generally  received  heroes  as  swin- 
dlers, quacks,  and  boasters.  Even  their  protecting  divin- 
ities partake  of  the  same  qualities.  The  most  sacred 
scenes  illustrate  this  view.  The  very  funeral  rites  fur- 
nish proof  of  their  low-born  cunning,  and  despicable  hy- 

16* 


37°  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

pocrisy,  which  Homer,  for  a  wise  purpose,  holds  up  to 
the  scorn  of  all  countries,  and  especially  of  Greece.  Il- 
lustrations are  plentiful ;  as,  for  instance,  in  the  twenty- 
third  book,  a  mule  is  offered  for  the  best  boxer.  One  of 
the  pugilists  stands  forth,  and  in  the  true  Bowery  patois 
exclaims  (Derby's  translation,  vol.  ii.,  page  400),  "  I  mean 
to  pound  his  flesh  and  smash  his  bones  !"  His  rival  puts 
on  his  bull's-hide  gauntlets  and  leaps  into  the  "centre 
of  the  ring  "  with  the  celerity  of  Yankee  Sullivan.  Then 
commences  the  "clattering  of  each  other's  jaws,"  until 
one  is  dragged  out  spitting  forth  clotted  gore.  This  is  a 
pretty  funeral  rite  dedicated  to  friendship !  Is  it  not  a 
satire  on  the  "fistic  art?"  Was  it  not  intended  for  the 
"half  man"  to  laugh  at? 

There  is  no  pretense  to  fair  play  by  these  Greeks  in 
their  "  little  games  "  in  honor  of  the  dead.  Call  that  fair 
play  in  wrestling,  when  wily  Ulysses  trips  up  Ajax,  "by 
locking  his  leg  around  and  striking  sharp  upon  the  hol- 
low of  the  knee,"  so  as  to  upset  the  giant !  This  is  what 
is  called,  in  the  West,  the  grape-vine  twist  It  is  not 
reckoned  the  fair  thing.  In  the  race,  when  Minerva  sees 
that  her  favorite  is  behind,  this  mean  and  unseen  female 
trips  up  the  awkward  Ajax,  and  allows  her  champion  to 
carry  off  the  "pewter  mug."  And  into  what  a  predica- 
ment he  makes  Ajax  fall.  Even  the  opera  bouffe  of  the 
French,  which  has  seized  on  this  epic  for  its  richest  mate- 
rial of  superlative  travestie,  could  not,  by  any  trick  of  the 
stage,  place  Ajax  in  the  degrading  "fix"  which  Homer 
arranges  for  him.  One  should  take  refuge  in  the  Greek 
text  to  describe  it,  though  Mr.  Bryant  faithfully  says : 

"Ajax,  in  running,  slipped  and  fell — the  work 
Of  Pallas — where  in  heaps  the  refuse  lay 
From  entrails  of  the  bellowing  oxen  slain." 


CLASSIC    HUMOR — A    HOMERIC   STUDY.  371 

His  mouth  and  nostrils  are  full  of  filth,  and  his  only 
reference  to  the  unpleasant  transaction  is  that  Minerva 
acted  like  a  mother  toward  her  pet,  Ulysses.  And  the 
Greeks  laughed.  This  was  at  a  funeral ! 

Even  the  fight  between  Hector  and  Achilles  is  a  pluck- 
less  encounter.  No  one  nowadays  would  call  it  heroic. 
Hector  is  afraid  to  go  inside  the  walls.  He  fears  re- 
proach ;  then  he  will  risk  it.  But  as  soon  as  he  per- 
ceives Achilles  coming,  all  ablaze  in  his  armor,  he  flees 
terror-stricken,  and  is  hunted  three  times  around  the 
walls,  making  hippodrome  time.  The  very  washer-wom- 
en at  their  stone  troughs  laugh  at  the  spectacle.  At  last 
he  is  brought  to  bay,  but  only  by  a  ruse  of  one  of  the 
good  goddesses,  whose  favorite  he  is,  and  who,  personating 
a  brother,  persuades  Hector  to  stand,  and  he  will  be  suc- 
cored. But,  finally,  Achilles  corners  him — Achilles,  who 
is  so  mad,  according  to  Derby's  translation,  that  he  wants 
to  tear  and  eat  him.  Then  the  Greeks  gather  around 
and  begin  to  pierce  anew  the  dead  man,  as  I  have  seen 
Spanish  boys  in  the  bull-ring  stick  their  javelins  into  the 
corpse  of  the  gallant  bull,  or  like  Falstaff  killing  anew 
the  departed  Hotspur !  Then  this  heroic  Achilles,  mak- 
ing holes  in  the  ankles  of  the  dead  man,  ties  him  to  his 
chariot,  and,  with  a  ferocity  worse  than  that  of  the  mean- 
est Modoc,  hauls  him  around  the  walls  eleven  times,  till 
his  mother  tears  her  hair  and  his  father  groans.  This  is 
the  noble  art  of  war  ! 

What  other  object  could  a  man  so  well  educated  and 
traveled  as  Homer  have  had  in  writing  these  things,  ex- 
cept that  of  Cervantes,  who  depictured  Don  Quixote  and 
his  class  so  as  to  make  chivalry  ridiculous  and  odious  ? 
What  other  object  besides,  unless  to  glorify  our  favorite 
Thersites  to  future  ages  for  his  good  sense  in  ridiculing 


372  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

such  fraudulent  and  brutal  monsters?  Nor  should  we 
fail  to  remember  that  it  was  this  same  Achilles  who  kills 
Thersites.  And  for  what  ?  Thersites  makes  fun  of  this 
brute  because  he  mawkishly  wept  over  a  big,  strapping 
Amazon,  called  Penthesilea,  whom  Achilles  himself  had 
slain  !  Though  this  is  not  well  authenticated,  it  is  not  at 
all  unlikely.  The  remarks  made  by  the  dying  Thersites 
on  this  lamentable  occasion,  if  it  occurred,  are  not  record- 
ed ;  but  we  can  well  imagine  them.  Doubtless  he  had 
the  best  of  the  talk ;  and  there  being  no  rational  answer, 
there  was  but  one  reply — a  brass  knuckle  over  the  old 
man's  bald  head !  It  was  fit  that  Thersites  should  die 
by  such  a  hand  in  the  cause  of  free  speech.  "  Ferocious 
barbarian  at  best,"  Mr.  Bryant  well  calls  Achilles.  Did 
he  not  want  his  own  people  slain  by  thousands  till  they 
learned  to  despise  Agamemnon  ?  Why  this  ?  Because 
the  latter  had  stolen  his  young  lady.  Besides,  did  he  not 
capture  twelve  Trojan  youths — this  Achilles — to  cut  their 
throats  at  the  funeral  of  Patroclus — a  cold-blooded,  dis- 
gusting act,  only  paralleled  by  certain  Cuban  captain- 
generals  of  our  clay  ?  If  Thersites  is  not  the  true  hero 
of  Homer,  then  Achilles  ought  not  to  be. 

Many  years  ago,  an  English  lawyer  published  an  arti- 
cle in  Blackwood  to  prove  that  the  "  Iliad  "  involved  only 
legal  merits.  He  argues  the  case  of  Menelaus  vs.  Paris, 
and  the  proper  practice.  He  contrasts  the  remedy  of 
Greece  with  that  of  England  in  such  cases.  Going  to 
the  proper  subject  of  the  poem,  he  argued,  further,  that 
the  wrath  of  Achilles  was  the  main  point  of  law.  As 
that  wrath  sprung  from  what  Achilles  considered  an  un- 
fair division  of  the  loot  taken  in  one  of  the  Grecian  bum- 
ming expeditions ;  and  as  part  of  this  plunder  was  an 
assortment  of  ladies ;  and  as,  in  the  division,  Chryseis 


CLASSIC    HUMOR — A    HOMERIC    STUDY.  373 

is  taken  by  Agamemnon,  the  rest  being  passed  around 
among  these  virtuous  heroes ;  and,  further,  as,  on  a  di- 
vine intimation,  Agamemnon  gives  up  Chryseis  to  her  fa- 
ther, no  ransom  being  asked — the  question  mooted  is, 
What  shall  Agamemnon  have  for  suffering  that  loss  ?  It 
is  not  inquired  how  useful  the  lady  was ;  what  work  she 
performed  ;  but,  if  Agamemnon  suffered  for  the  common 
weal,  ought  not  that  weal  to  pay  him  pro  rata  ?  If  so, 
what  rate?  Again,  if  the  lady  caused  the  trouble,  and 
her  release  allayed  it,  may  it  not  be  concluded  that  the 
wrath  which  is  at  the  foundation  of  the  epic  is  a  huge  le- 
gal joke  ?  When  Achilles  calls  the  Big  King  insolent  and 
timid,  "  a  dog  in  forehead,  and  in  heart  a  deer,"  it  seems 
as  if  the  very  genius  of  jurisprudence  was  inverted  in  or- 
der to  make  war  ludicrous. 

If,  then,  the  Homeric  incidents  are  to  be  tried  by  legal 
rules  and  formulae,  what  would  be  the  verdict  in  a  case  of 
slander  brought  by  Thersites  against  Ulysses  for  his  scan- 
dalous utterances  in  the  second  book  ?  Or  suppose  Aga- 
memnon had  sued  Thersites  for  libel  in  asserting  that  he 
had  illegally  and  surreptitiously  heaped  up  gold  and  kept 
damsels  in  his  tent — could  not  Thersites  have  given  the 
truth  in  evidence,  by  way  of  justification? 

But  it  may  be  urged  that  Homer  is  not  qualified  by  his 
serious  vocation  as  a  royal  minstrel,  singing  of  grand 
and  patriotic  events,  to  make  comedy  out  the  fallible  hu- 
man wrath  and  immoral  divine  intervention  which  digni- 
fy the  epic.  Whoever  thus  argues,  does  not  know  the 
blind  old  bard  of  Scio.  W7as  there  ever  since — saving 
Cervantes — such  mock  heroism,  as  he  sings  in  his  "Ba- 
trachomyomachia  ?"  The  vanquished  frogs  and  the  vic- 
tor mice  call  for  no  less  an  inspiration  than  Helicon. 
Mars,  too,  is  invoked.  Destiny  and  Divinity  play  their 


374  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

parts.  Their  armor  is  prepared  with  minute  fidelity  to 
that  of  the  epic  heroes.  Heralds  announce  the  opening 
hostilities.  It  is  a  fight  of  needles  against  bulrushes. 
The  Gnats  sound  the  onset,  and  Jove  thunders.  The 
fight  thickens.  Extermination  threatens  the  whole  Frog 
race.  Olympus  shakes,  but  kind  Heaven  sends  the  Crabs 
as  allies  to  the  Frogs.  Catling  guns  could  not  be  more 
effective.  Off  go  tail,  head,  and  feet  from  the  whiskered 
cuirassiers  who  make  a  Bull  Run  of  the  day !  A  race 
ensues,  and  a  race  is  saved ! 

The  genius  which  thus  ridicules  the  deities  and  heroes 
of  that  early  day  must  have  been  comically  inclined  ;  and 
doubtless  the  same  genius  had  a  still  profounder  conceit 
of  comedy,  in  his  pictures  of  the  epic  characters  of  the 
u  Iliad."  Thersites  is  his  most  genuine  character ;  all  the 
rest  are  as  frogs,  mice,  and  crabs — created  for  the  healthy 
laughter  of  the  philosophic  and  fun-loving  Greeks  ! 

Whom,  in  all  that  group  of  quarrelsome  and  greedy 
Greeks,  does  Homer  choose  to  give  the  moral  lesson  to 
such  mean  monsters  ?  Thersites.  Who  is  it  that  was 
abused  and  knocked  down  by  the  sham  hero  of  the  "  Iliad  ?" 
Thersites.  \Vho  is  it  that  had  the  courage  to  tell  the  thiev- 
ing, adulterous,  long-haired  Hellenes,  who  put  on  royal  airs, 
with  their  few  Poinses,  Bardolphs,  and  Pistols,  as  retainers, 
the  simple  truth  of  their  vagabond  and  inglorious  lives  ? 
Thersites.  Who  was  the  just  though  conical-headed  or- 
ator that  taunted  this  scurvy  set  with  their  cowardice  in 
"  wanting  to  go  home  "  to  avoid  the  fight,  and  who  pro- 
posed himself,  when  they  left,  to  take  the  business  in 
hand?  Thersites.  Who  is  it— ?  But  I  anticipate.  If 
any  one  would  ascertain  the  valiant  and  just  merits  of 
our  outspoken  friend  Thersites,  let  him  read  unprejudiced 
the  remarks  of  that  gentleman,  and  then  con  the  list  of 


CLASSIC    HUMOR — A    HOMERIC   STUDY.  375 

the  Greeks  at  the  end  of  the  second  book,  who  at  one 
moment  applauded,  and  the  next  buffeted  him.  Some  al- 
lowance may  be  made  for  the  absenteeism  of  these  dis- 
reputable Greeks.  They  had  been  away  from  home  quite 
a  long  time.  Telegraphs  and  postal  cards  were  not  then 
in  vogue.  Steamers  did  not  ply  as  now  amidst  the  isles 
of  Greece.  These  marauders  had  been  lying  around 
Troy,  feeding  on  spoils  for  nine  long  years,  and  when  at 
last  they  were  aroused  with  a  prospect  of  a  row  or  a  re- 
turn home — Homer  well  likens  them  to  tribes  of  "geese, 
cranes,  and  long-necked  swans  "  disporting  and  swarming 
into  Scamander's  plain.  A  pretty  picture  of  a  heroic 
crowd  !  But  to  the  catalogue  itself!  We  have  had  lists 
of  voting  repeaters,  and  Federal  inspectors  in  our  big  cit- 
ies ;  we  have  had  rolls  of  members  of  the  Legislature, 
but  such  a  list  of  bruisers  and  adventurers  never  was  en- 
rolled before.  Was  it  not  done  for  a  purpose  ?  Had  Ho- 
mer no  idea  of  the  lesson  he  was  teaching  ?  There  was 
Agamemnon.  He  leads.  Homer  likens  him  to  a  big- 
chested  bull.  Then  we  have  one  Astyoche,  who  insulted 
a  bashful  maiden  in  the  upper  palace  rooms  ;  Tlepolemus, 
who  had  slain  his  dear  old  uncle  whom  he  loved ;  and 
Achilles  himself,  who  was  sulking  in  his  ship  because 
some  one  had  coaxed  away  his  maiden — a  fair- haired 
young  girl  whom  he  had  stolen  from  Lyrnessus.  One 
Philoctetes  is  mentioned,  who  started  out  with  seven  ships, 
each  about  as  big  as  a  yawl ;  but  he  was  absent  on  the 
sick-list.  Homer  says  that  his  soldiers  had  deserted  him 
at  Lemnos,  "snake  bit" i.  e.,  likely  that  he  had  the  deliri- 
um tremens,  though  the  original  Greek  is  not  very  clear 
on  this  point. 

This  is  a  sample  of  the  noble  array  to  protect  which 
gods  and  goddesses  were  hovering  about  on  azure  wings 


376  WHY   WE   LAUGH. 

and  without  much  toilet  on  their  backs.  Captain  Jack 
and  Shacknasty  Jim  rise  in  the  comparison  above  these 
Hellenic  ragamuffins ;  and  yet  these  are  the  rascally  bat- 
talions who  "  smiled  "  (as  Mr.  Bryant  translates  it),  /.  £., 
took  a  cocktail,  doubtless  to  the  health  of  Ulysses,  be- 
cause that  oily  old  vagabond  and  hypocrite  silenced  the 
honest  indignation  of  Thersites  with  his  club.  Lord 
Derby  calls  the  club,  by  a  pleasant  euphemism,  a  golden 
sceptre!  These  are  the  riff-raff  who  applaud  when  the 
poor  but  respectable  hunchback  is  belabored  over  the 
shoulders  till  a  bloody  welt  rises  where  this  royal  shilla- 
lah  fell !  If  there  were  nothing  else  to  ennoble  Thersites, 
we  might  be  content  with  his  manner  of  receiving  this 
cowardly  and  vulgar  attack  of  Ulysses.  Not  satisfied 
with  calling  Thersites  bad  names,  such  as  "garrulous 
wretch,"  nor  with  sneering  at  him  for  presuming  to  dis- 
pute with  kings,  this  wily  old  toady  and  aristocrat,  Ulys- 
ses, threatens  to  strip  off  his  "cloak  and  tunic,  and  what- 
ever else  covers  his  carcass/'  and  send  him  forth  howl- 
ing. If  he  don't — then — then — Telemachus  is  not  his  son, 
etc.  Not  content  with  using  language  not  tolerable  in  a 
dance -house  or  fish -market,  he,  with  his  loaded  club, 
knocks  down  this  lame,  bald-headed  old  gentleman,  Ther- 
sites ;  and  for  what  ?  What  had  Thersites  been  doing, 
and  what  saying?  Nothing  more  than  is  said  every  day 
in  some  of  our  independent  newspapers,  when  speaking 
of  the  "  cormorants  of  corruption."  Homer  quietly  gives 
us  the  facts.  After  Agamemnon  proposed  to  desert  the 
war,  all  kept  their  seats  but  one.  This  one  was  wont  to 
seek  strife  with  kings.  He  was  a  Greek  Puritan  with 
an  overflowing  humor,  and  thus  he  is  described  : 

"All  others  took  their  seats,  and  kept  their  place. 
Thersites  only,  clamorous  of  tongue, 


CLASSIC   HUMOR — A   HOMERIC   STUDY.  377 

Kept  brawling.     He,  with  many  insolent  words, 

Was  wont  to  seek  unseemly  strife  with  kings, 

Uttering  whate'er  it  seemed  to  him  might  move 

The  Greeks  to  laughter.     Of  the  multitude 

Who  came  to  Ilium,  none  so  base  as  he — 

Squint-eyed,  with  one  lame  foot,  and  on  his  back 

A  lump,  and  shoulders  curving  toward  the  chest ; 

His  head  was  sharp,  and  over  it  the  hairs 

Were  thinly  scattered.     Hateful  to  the  chiefs, 

Achilles  and  Ulysses,  he  would  oft 

Revile  them.     He  to  Agamemnon  now 

Called,  with  shrill  voice  and  taunting  words.     The  Greeks 

Heard  him  impatiently,  with  strong  disgust 

And  vehement  anger ;  yet  he  shouted  still 

To  Agamemnon,  and  kept  railing  on."* 

With  shrill  voice  and  taunting  tone,  and  in  spite  of  inter- 
ruptions from  impatient  members  of  the  council,  he,  with 
a  pertinacity  inspired  by  a  fearless  heart  and  a  just  cause, 
reminds  the  pompous  king  that  he,  the  king,  has  already 
had  the  best  of  the  war-spoils.  He  asserts  that  heaps  of 
gold  and  chosen  damsels  fill  Agamemnon's  tent.  Did 
any  one  deny  the  charge?  Although  Ulysses  admitted 
it,  he  only  tried  to  parry  it.  He  confessed,  and  avoided. 
"  You  hanker  for  more,"  said  Thersites,  "  more  gold  from 
ransomed  youths,"  and  more  maidens  for  thy  idle  hours, 
as  in  the  text : 

"  Some  maiden,  whom  thou  mayst  detain  apart." 

Not  a  Greek  denied  this  charge.  The  camp  was  full  of 
girls,  working  worsted,  apparently,  and  the  truth  had  to 
come  out,  damaging  as  it  was,  to  the  princely  and  heroic 
character.  When  Homer  thus  selects  Thersites  to  do 
this  unpleasant  duty,  he  knew  his  man  ;  and  if  Thersites, 

*  Bryant's  translation  of  Homer,  book  ii.,  line  210,  et  seq. 


37*>  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

or  others  like  him,  had  had  the  courage  to  do  more  of  it, 
Helen  and  her  plunder  would  not  have  remained,  to  the 
end  of  the  twenty-fourth  book,  in  Troy. 

Were  there  more  of  this  humor  in  our  modern  coun- 
cils, there  would  be  heartier  commendation  of  laughter, 
as  a  mode  of  reforming  abuses. 

Then,  on  these  data,  Thersites  began  to  taunt  them 
with  being  women — not  Greeks,  but  Greeklings — unwor- 
thy of  their  fame  and  name.  Was  he  not  justified  ?  It 
was  for  this  free  speech  against  these  libertines  and  pil- 
lagers that  this  honest  debater  was  incontinently  floored 
with  the  gavel  or  mace  of  Ulysses.  It  was  for  this  plain 
talk  that  this  noble  old  man  writhed  in  pain,  and,  as  we 
are  pained  to  learn,  dropped  buckets  of  tears  from  his 
lachrymal  ducts.  If  from  such  a  fountain  the  truth  and 
tears  flow  to  preserve  the  honor  of  a  nation,  let  him  be 
welcome  !  Then  the  thesis — why  we  laugh — would  have 
a  more  significant  and  rational  discussion.  But  let  me 
not  moralize.  The  tears  he  shed,  perhaps,  were  tears 
of  sorrow  and  chagrin  that  he  had  failed  to  recall  the 
recreants  to  duty;  or,  perhaps,  his  ducts  were  a  little 
weak ;  or,  it  may  be,  they  were  tears  which  large  laugh- 
ter sometimes  sheds,  when  a  good  point  is  made  so  ef- 
fective that  the  adversary  is  flustered,  and,  to  rebut  it, 
uses  a  knock-down  argument,  with  the  violence  of  an 
irrational  brute.  Ah,  Thersites !  buffeted  of  Greeks, 
scorned  of  kings,  abused  by  the  ages,  mangled  by  trans- 
lators, laughed  at  in  Congress,  your  day  has  come ! 
Your  vindication  draws  nigh !  I  thank  the  immortals 
that  it  is  permitted  to  me  to  see  into  that  squint  eye, 
and  take  its  spirit  "  straight ;"  that  though  to  the  Cam- 
bridge sophomore  your  shoulders  curve  too  much  to 
your  breast,  and  your  hump  be  somewhat  too  apparent, 


CLASSIC    HUMOR — A    HOMERIC   STUDY.  379 

your  character  is  yet  rectilinear,  and  your  pluck  had 
no  ungainly  vertebrae ;  that  though  you  could  not  boast 
of  the  ample  chest  of  Agamemnon,  nor  the  loins  of  Mars, 
your  chest  was  not  full  of  ill-gotten  treasure,  nor  your 
loins  girt  with  the  wages  of  unrighteousness ;  that  though 
unfortunately  one  foot  was  lame,  your  understanding  was 
doubly  correct ;  that  though  your  head  was  sharp,  yet, 
after  all,  it  was  "  level ;"  and  though  your  hairs  were  few 
and  short,  you  were  not  one  of  the  "curled  darlings"  of 
a  corrupt  court. 

Once  more,  O  goddess  who  sung  the  wrath  of  Peleus's 
son,  oblige  me  by  sweeping  away  the  host  of  braggart 
knaves,  that  this  shrill-voiced,  tearful,  and  honest,  though 
deformed,  gentleman  may  take  his  place  as  the  one 
good,  one  fair,  one  beautiful,  in  the  Pantheon  of  Fame  ! 
When  Thersites  leads  the  Greeks,  if  Troy  does  not  put 
a  better  than  Hector  on  the  walls,  all  the  worse  for 
Troy ! 

If,  then,  it  be  true,  as  Pope  says,  that  the  speeches  in 
the  "  Iliad  "  are  to  be  considered  as  flowing  from  the  char- 
acters ;  and  if,  moreover,  the  infelicity  of  those  ages  was 
the  spirit  of  revenge  and  cruelty,  rapine  and  robbery ; 
and  if  Thersites  is  the  only  character  who  declaimed 
against  them,  is  he  not  the  only  hero  for  us  to  honor  un- 
der our  new  lights  as  we  approach  the  Golden  Age  ?  Sup- 
pose Pope  and  all  the  translators  make  Ulysses  call  him 

"  A  factious  monster  born  to  vex  the  state," 

what  sort  of  a  state  did  he  vex?  Bryant  answers  in  his 
translation,  when  he  makes  Ulysses  say  that 

"  We,  the  Greeks, 

Can  not  be  all  supreme  in  power.     The  rule 
Of  the  many  is  not  well." 


380  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

Then  Pope,  again,  in  his  translation  makes  Ulysses 
charge  Thersites  with  "  wrangling  talents  formed  for  foul 
debate."  We  can  judge  whether  he  was  thus  guilty  by 
his  remarks.  He  told  too  much  truth.  In  our  modern 
day,  he  would  have  been  cashiered  and  sent  home,  or 
there  would  have  been  a  requisition,  without  habeas 
corpus,  for  his  ungainly  body ;  or  he  would  have  lost 
the  liberty  of  unlicensed  criticism  upon  their  Hellenic 
majesties. 

Again,  Ulysses  taunts  Thersites  with  not  doing  so 
much  fighting  as  upbraiding.  But  this  is  only  the  asser- 
tion of  a  vexed  and  discomfited  controversialist.  He 
more  than  hints  that  while  others  gave  presents  to  Aga- 
memnon, Thersites  gave  none,  and  was  not  good  enough 
to  receive  any.  Now  we  see  what  made  Ulysses  so  pug- 
nacious on  the  poor,  weak  humpback.  We  come  to  the 
real  meaning  of  the  blow  Thersites  received  ;  for  had  not 
this  truthful  spokesman  said, 

"  With  all  the  wealth  our  wars,  our  blood,  bestow, 
Thy  tents  are  crowded,  and  thy  chests  o'erflow." 

Barest  thou  repeat  that  accusation,  thou  reviler  of  the 
god -protected  and  heaven -descended?  Did  he  quail? 
Never.  We  have  the  best  translation,  which  affirms 
that  he  charged  home  on  the  kingly  rogue  who  had 
plagued  the  people  with  his  pride  and  punished  them 
with  his  lust ;  and  then  the  blow  fell ! 

Some  translators  make  Thersites  only  a  "promiscu- 
ous" talker,  and  tenderly  refer  to  the  "good  gifts"  which 
were  merited  by  the  kings  before  given.  Others  call 
him  a  ribald,  blurting  rascal,  with  a  haughty  spirit ;  but 
the  original  text  is  not  so  dim,  nor  our  eyes  so  blind, 
but  that  we  can  see  that  Thersites  spoke  for  the  plun- 


CLASSIC   HUMOR — A   HOMERIC   STUDY.  381 

dered  masses  against  the  prerogatived  and  rapacious 
few.  He  saw  no  glory  in  wars  which  only  helped  the 
leaders  to  damsels  and  dalliance,  gold  and  greatness. 
He  did  not  believe  in  the  right  divine  of  kings  to  govern 
wrong,  or  embezzle  goods.  Wherever  there  has  been  an 
itching  palm  like  that  of  Cassius,  or  an  embezzling  sutler 
or  commissary,  the  same  ridicule  and  scorn  appear,  to 
answer  the  query,  "  Why  should  we  not  laugh  ?" 

Wishing  to  leave  no  stone  unturned  to  vindicate  our 
hero,  and  knowing  the  large  experience  of  Lord  Derby 
as  a  statesman  and  scholar,  I  sought  his  text,  to  know 
whether  he  had,  with  nicer  heed,  caught  the  inner 
meaning  and  exquisite  irony  of  this  grand  epic.  We 
thought  that  Lord  Stanley,  the  Rupert  of  debate,  would 
know  what  Homer  meant  by  this  character  of  Thersites. 
But  he  does  not  guess  the  ironic  genius  of  this  man 
of  "  unmeasured  words."  He  admits  that,  like  a  good 
stump-speaker,  Thersites  could  "  move  the  crowd  to  laugh- 
ter;" but  he  does  not  perceive  the  exact  rationalia  of 
laughing  at  kings  and  their  coffers.  Thersites,  railing  at 
Ulysses  and  louder  still  at  Agamemnon,  the  chief,  shows 
at  least  that  he  struck  high ;  and  Lord  Derby  well  trans- 
lates it ;  but  when  he  asserts  that  Agamemnon  only  pock- 
eted brass  and  not  gold,  he  is  rather  too  tender  on  the 
"spoils"  question  toward  his  conservative  and  rural 
friends.  The  weight  of  authority  is  in  favor  of  the  gold 
theory.  However,  the  Greek  words  are,  yepa  TreaaifjLtv, 
which  mean  to  amass  booty.  That  will  answer  every 
purpose.  Such  amassing,  we  regret  to  observe,  did  not 
stop  three  thousand  years  ago,  when  Troy  fell.  We  read 
in  the  last  of  Jeremiah  that  Nebuzar-adan  took  in  wars, 
vessels  of  gold,  and  vessels  of  silver,  and  made  a  good 
thing  out  of  war  generally ;  and  history  and  war  but  re- 


382  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

peat  themselves.  If  there  is  one  thing  Homer  meant  to 
teach  the  Greeks  by  this  episode,  it  is  the  heinousness 
of  war,  which  aggrandizes  wealth  at  the  expense  of  the 
state.  That  lesson  is  for  all  time.  Thersites  is  the  only 
medium  in  the  "  Iliad  "  brave  enough  to  teach  it. 

Mr.  Bryant  observes  that  it  is  a  sort  of  "poetic  finery" 
when  so  many  dazzling  epithets  are  applied  by  Homer 
to  these  heroes  of  the  great  epic.  It  is  extended  to  fill 
out  a  line  or  give  it  a  sonorous  termination.  Every  one 
is  either  knightly,  magnanimous,  or  godlike ;  or  swift- 
footed,  or  beamy-crested,  or,  like  Rarey,  a  horse-tamer ! 
On  the  theory  that  Thersites  was  the  favorite  of  Homer, 
may  not  the  poet  have  intended  to  make  fun  by  these 
well-sounding  or  hexametrous  epithets  applied  to  these 
inflated  personages  ?  May  it  not  be  a  part  of  that  subtle 
Cervantian  irony  which  was  intended  to  degrade  the  pur- 
suit of  arms,  and  the  rather  to  attract  and  persuade 
men  to  the  virtues  and  victories,  not  so  renowned,  of 
peace  ? 

The  very  lame  and  impotent  conclusion  of  the  poem 
and  the  war  shows  that  the  epic  is  a  satire  on  physical 
combat.  Who  was  hurt  ?  The  innocent  mostly.  Paris, 
the  robber  and  adulterer,  was  protected  by  the  people  of 
Troy,  who  shared  his  fate.  Like  our  late  war  with  Great 
Britain,  this  Trojan  war  ended  without  even  a  treaty 
about  the  actual  casus  belli.  The  Greeks  did  not  get 
Helen,  after  all;  and  Helen  showed  her  good  sense 
by  remaining,  where  she  had  been  for  twenty  years, 
among  the  Trojans.  Hector,  the  best  of  these  valiant 
warriors,  is  slain ;  and  there  is  no  moral,  except  that 
right  is  overcome  by  violence,  and  injustice  is  aided  by 
the  immortals  to  victory.  The  "  true  grandeur  of  na- 
tions/* which  Homer  must  have  observed  before  Mr. 


CLASSIC    HUMOR — A    HOMERIC   STUDY.  383 

Sumner  spoke  his  oration,  is  taught  to  reside  in  the  safe- 
ty of  concord. 

The  early  Grecian  and  Roman  orators,  who  deprecated 
wars,  and  held  that  there  was  no  peace  that  was  not  hon- 
orable, and  no  war  not  dishonorable,  must  have  under- 
stood Homer,  from  whom  they  drew  so  much,  to  have 
written  in  this  ironic  vein. 

"  Fain  would  I  offer  my  tribute,"  says  Mr.  Sumner,  "  to 
the  Father  of  Poetry,  standing  with  harp  of  immortal 
memory  on  the  misty  mountain-top  of  distant  antiquity." 
Well,  why  did  he  not  ?  Because  the  "Iliad"  breathed  the 
breath  of  war.  Had  he  but  read  Homer  rightly,  and  ap- 
preciated Thersites  as  the  real  hero,  he  would  not  have 
withheld  his  tribute. 

The  epic  is  defined  by  Bossu  to  be  a  discourse  invent- 
ed by  art,  to  form  the  manners,  by  instructive  allegory, 
which  is  related  in  verse,  after  a  probable,  diverting,  and 
surprising  manner.  The  unity  of  the  "Iliad"  is  not  the 
unity  of  mere  time  before  Troy,  but  the  moral  unity  of 
many  states  in  one,  E  Pluribus  Unum.  Hence  its  politic- 
al morality  and  lesson.  Divided  at  home,  the  Greeks  were 
united,  but  only  apparently  so,  abroad.  To  make  them 
more  harmonious,  Homer  shows  that  "  the  anger  of  Achil- 
les was  pernicious  by  occasioning  discord  between  that 
hero  and  Agamemnon ;"  and  hence  the  necessity  of  ac- 
cord. If  this  were  the  only  epical  and  ethical  lesson, 
the  poem  would  indeed  be  but  a  foolish  fable,  a  futile 
phantom.  But  the  epic  should  be  moral  in  the  highest 
sense.  The  divinities  should  appear  divine ;  the  heroes 
as  "  only  not  divine  ;"  the  colloquy  should  be  elevated  ; 
and  it  should  come  with  emphasis  from  a  great  teacher. 
Now,  Homer  was  not  a  shadowy  symbol,  whoever  may 
have  put  him  together.  Whether,  as  De  Quincey  says, 


384  WHY    WE    LAUGH. 

there  is  but  one  old,  hazy,  golden  Homer  that  looms  upon 
us  so  venerably  through  the  mist  of  centuries,  or  a  vast 
reverberation  of  little  silver  Homers  that  twinkle  up  and 
down  the  world,  it  is  certain  that  there  was  a  superb  mo- 
rality lifting  this  epic  into  immortal  exaltation.  Who- 
ever is  the  author,  he,  she,  or  it ;  whether  by  Chorizontes, 
Rhapsodoi,  or  Homeridse,  or  by  whomsoever  collated, 
sung,  and  arranged  ;  whether  by  Lycurgus,  Solon,  or  the 
Alexandrine  librarians ;  whatever  his  name  means  in  the 
original,  whether  it  be  a  Delphic  or  prophetic  name  indi- 
cating his  fate,  or  a  hostage,  or  a  blind  man,  or  a  packer 
of  trunks  (carpet-bagger),  one  thing  may  be  defiantly  as- 
serted, that  the  Homeric  characters  had  a  meaning  in 
their  essence  depending  on  the  character  of  the  mind 
which  is  applied  to  them.  No  one  can  pretend  that  the 
author  or  authors  had  not  a  sympathetic,  lofty,  human 
soul ;  and  if  that  be  true,  there  is  a  larger  moral  in  his 
song  than  in  the  mere  choleric  outbursts  of  his  hero  and 
the  political  unities  of  the  state.  He  meant  to  teach  the 
dangers  of  human  passion  and  warlike  feuds.  Anger  in 
Achilles,  dissimulation  in  Ulysses,  meekness  in  ^Eneas, 
are  of  no  moment,  unless  they  teach  the  litany,  "  That  it 
may  please  Thee  to  give  all  nations  unity,  peace,  con- 
cord." The  epic  is,  then,  the  foundation  of  international 
law,  as  well  as  of  worldly  and  world -wide  prosperity. 
Who  in  the  epic  rises  in  such  a  "probable,  diverting, 
and  surprising  manner"  to  the  height  of  this  great  argu- 
ment, like  Thersites  ?  Does  he  not  answer,  in  the  high- 
est sense,  for  all  mankind,  including  America,  the  ques- 
tion of  my  dissertations  :  "Why  should  we  not  laugh?" 

When  an  English  general  called  the  art  of  war  "dam- 
nable ;"  when  Napoleon  called  war  the  trade  of  barba- 
rians ;  when  an  American  officer,  in  battle,  wrote  on  a 


CLASSIC   HUMOR — A    HOMERIC   STUDY.  385 

slate  the  dying  words,  "  Give  them  hell !"  they  were  an- 
ticipated by  the  great  teacher,  Homer,  and  our  favorite 
Thersites;  for  of  all  the  scourges — earthquake,  famine, 
and  plague,  fire,  epizooty,  and  trichina  included — is  there 
in  history  so  appalling  a  calamity  as  war  ?  It  includes 
all  vices  of  all  ages  and  all  lands.  To  allure  Greece  to 
the  arts  of  peace;  to  make  her  the  eye  of  philosophy  and 
the  cradle  of  genius ;  to  lift  her  above  the  ordinary  plain, 
to  be  seen  and  read  of  all  men,  like  the  Acropolis,  with 
Minerva  and  her  banner  above  it  —  may  not  this  have 
been  the  deeper  thought  of  the  great  epical  teacher  ?  If 
in  this  spirit,  and  with  this  key,  we  approach  Homer  and 
Thersites,  we  best  comprehend  the  muse.  To  do  this,  no 
favors  are  craved  of  time.  If,  indeed,  any  thing  Homeric 
is  original,  the  original  text  will  answer  for  all  purposes 
.  of  vindication. 

The  consentaneous  commentary  and  the  general  drift 
of  translation  confirm  my  theory ;  but  I  place  its  abso- 
lute verity  on  higher  ground.  It  depends  on  the  inmost 
life  of  the  poem,  which  would  lose  its  harmony,  if  its 
genius  were  not  a  flaming  sword  of  satire,  to  destroy  the 
worst  enemies  of  Grecian  unity  and  human  advancement. 
Could  the  man  whose  mind  conceived  and  whose  voice 
hymned,  to  the  swelling  harmony  of  the  voiceful  sea,  such 
a  grand  epic,  have  meant  it  only  as  a  tribute  to  a  pack 
of  paltry  charlatans,  angry  thieves,  and  lascivious  tyrants, 
and  as  a  genealogical  tree  for  the  upstarts  of  such  a  race  ? 

Were  Homer's  teachings  lost  on  Greece?  This  in- 
quiry involves  a  singular  confirmation  of  my  ironic  the- 
ory, which  De  Quincey  unconsciously  gives.  There  was 
great  rivalry  between  Sparta  and  Athens,  not  only  as  to 
leadership  in  Greece,  but  as  to  honoring  Homer.  What 
were  the  motives  of  each  state  in  re-editing  his  poems 


386  WHY   WE    LAUGH. 

and  consecrating  his  name  ?  The  lawgivers  of  each  state 
called  all  its  political  machinery  into  play  for  this  pur- 
pose— Lycurgus  for  Sparta,  Solon  for  Athens.  The  pur- 
pose of  Lycurgus  for  Sparta  is  plain.  It  had,  as  the  ba- 
sis, a  warlike  morality;  but,  says  De  Quincey,  "strangely 
enough,  from  the  literary  land  of  Athens  and  from  the 
later  period  we  do  not  learn  the  '  how '  and  the  '  why ;' 
but  from  the  gross  illiterate  land  and  the  short  period, 
we  do"  Clearly  one  motive  was  martial ;  the  other, 
the  opposite.  The  moral  of  the  "  Iliad  "  for  Sparta  was 
that  the  whole  duty  of  man  consisted  in  fighting ;  for 
Athens — well,  it  was  what,  when  a  boy  fresh  from  college, 
I  felt  when  traversing  these  seas  and  lands  where  Ho- 
mer ruled  "  as  his  demesne."  Athens  arose  under  the  spell 
of  enchantment,  the  haunt  of  Wisdom,  Poetry,  Oratory, 
and  Art.  It  became  the  dome  of  thought,  the  palace  of 
the  soul.  From  Homer  came  Plato  and  Aristotle ;  from 
Plato  and  Aristotle  that  language  and  spirit  which,  through 
many  vicissitudes,  kept  alive  the  literature  and  genius  of 
our  race.  Athens  triumphs,  because  she  regarded  Ho- 
mer in  his  best  sense ;  in  fact,  in  an  ironic  sense,  as  the 
teacher  of  peace,  and  not  the  voice  of  war.  Greece  her- 
self became  illumined  with  the  genius  of  Athens. 

From  all  climes,  pilgrims  came  to  her  shrines  of  gen- 
ius, and,  like  our  own  Everett,  found  in  her  desolation 
the  charmed  spot  where  was  woven  the  spell  of  enchant- 
ment. "  On  this  spot  was  woven  the  gorgeous  web  of 
the  *  Odyssey ;'  from  that  cliff  Sappho  threw  herself  into 
the  sea ;  on  my  left  hand  lie  the  gardens  of  Alcinous, 
and  the  olive  and  the  grape  and  the  orange  still  cover 
the  soil ;  before  me  rises  the  embattled  citadel  which 
Virgil  describes ;  on  my  right  are  the  infamous  Acroce- 
raunian  rocks  of  Horace ;  and  within  that  blue  mountain 


CLASSIC    HUMOR — A    HOMERIC    STUDY.  387 

barrier  which  bounds  the  horizon  were  concealed  the 
mystic  grove  and  oracle  of  Dodona,  the  cradle  of  the 
mythology  of  Greece." 

In  the  spirit  of  this  epic,  as  we  ironically  read  it,  the 
Grecian  isle  of  Delos  was  dedicated  to  the  gods,  where 
no  foe  could  come.  All  countries  here  met  in  absolute 
peace.  Would  its  temple  have  been  complete  without 
an  effigy  of  Thersites  or  a  statue  of  Homer  ?  The  latter, 
with  his  "  deep  brow "  and  honest  inspiration,  and  the 
former,  clear-cut,  distinct  and  effective,  would  have  given 
to  the  Grecian  chisel  rare  opportunity !  The  effigy  of 
Thersites  would  have  taught  that  laughter  has  its  no- 
blest uses  when  directed  against  wrong.  If  the  nations 
now  could  understand  fully  what  Homer  meant  when  he 
charged  the  warrior  kings  in  council — with  all  the  vices, 
robberies  and  rapes,  treacheries  and  spites,  cruelties  and 
crimes — there  would  be  a  vast  disarmament  in  Europe 
and  Asia,  and  many  milliards  would  be  saved  annually 
for  the  welfare  of  the  workers  among  men.  When  Mil- 
ton wrote  of  conquests,  he  made  the  indictment  against 
the  "  war  worthies  "  irrefragably  strong.  The  counts  were 
thus  summed  up  :  rob,  spoil,  burn,  slaughter,  enslave,  and 
ruin.  To  this  indictment  the  kings  of  history,  from  the 
Greeks  down,  must  plead ;  and  when  they  plead  not 
guilty,  let  the  prosecution  on  behalf  of  the  people  sum- 
mon Thersites  !  His  testimony  would  vindicate  not  only 
the  great  epic  muse,  but  the  universal  taste  for  the  hu- 
mors of  human  life,  which  are  nowhere  more  welcome  or 
rational  than  in  our  own  hemisphere. 


THE    END. 


VALUABLE  AND  INTERESTING  WORKS 


FOR 


PUBLIC  &  PRIYATE  LIBRARIES 

PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 


IW  For  a  full  List  of  Books  suitable  for  Libraries,  see  HARPER  &  BROTHERS' 
TRADE-LIST  and  CATALOGUE,  which  may  be  had  gratuitously  on  ap- 
plication to  the  Publishers  personally,  or  by  letter  enclosing  Six  Cents 
in  Postage  Stamps. 

C^~  HARPER  &  BROTHERS  will  send  any  of  the  following  ivorks  by  mail,  post- 
age prepaid,  to  any  part  of  the  United  States  or  Canada,  on  receipt  of 
the  price. 

FORSTER'S  LIFE  OF  DEAN  SWIFT.    The  Life  of  Jonathan  Swift.    By 
JOHN  FORSTER.    In  Three  Volumes.    Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50  each. 


With  nearly  One  Thousand  Maps  and  Illustrations.  Edited  by  the  Rev. 
LYMAN  AIJBOTT,  with  the  Co-operation  of  the  Rev.  T.  C.  CON  ANT,  D.D. 
Royal  Svo,  containing  over  1000  pages,  Cloth,  $6  00 ;  Sheep,  $7  00 ;  Half 
Morocco,  $8  50.  (Sold  by  Subscription.) 

VAN-LENNEP'S  BIBLE  LANDS.  Bible  Lands:  their  Modern  Customs 
and  Manners  Illustrative  of  Scripture.  By  the  Rev.  HENRY  J.  VAN-LEN- 
ISEP,  D.D.  Illustrated  with  upward  of  850  Wood  Engravings  and  t\vc 
Colored  Maps.  Svo,  838  pp.  Cloth,  $5  00 ;  Sheep,  $6  00 ;  Half  Morocco, 
IS  00. 

DRAKE'S  NOOKS  AND  CORNERS  OF  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 
Nooks  and  Corners  of  the  New  England  Coast.  By  SAMUKT.  ADAMS 
DRAKE,  Author  of  "Old  Landmarks  of  Boston,"  "Historic  Fields  and 
Mansions  of  Middlesex,"  &c.  With  numerous  Illustrations.  Svo,  Cloth, 
$3  50 ;  Half  Morocco,  $5  75. 

LIFE  OF  THE  REV.  DR.  JOHN  TODD.  John  Todd :  the  Story  of  his 
Life,  told  mainly  by  himself.  Compiled  and  Edited  by  JOHN  E.  TODD, 
Pastor  of  the  Church  of  the  Redeemer,  New  Haven,  Conn.  With  Illus- 
trations. Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  75. 

COCKER'S  THEISTIC  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD.  The  Theistic 
Conception  of  the  World.  An  Essay  in  Opposition  to  Certain  Tendencies 
of  Modern  Thought,  By  B.  F.  COOKER,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Author  of  "  Chris- 
tianity and  Greek  Philosophy."  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

GREEN'S  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.  A  Short 
History  of  the  English  People.  By  J.  R.  GREEN,  M.A.,  Examiner  in  the 
School  of  Modern  History,  Oxford.  With  Tables  and  Colored  Maps. 
Svo,  Cloth,  $1  75. 

MOHAMMED  AND  MOHAMMEDANISM  :  Lectures  Delivered  at  the  Royal 
Institution  of  Great  Britain  in  February  and  March,  1874.  By  R.  BOS- 
WORTH  SMITH,  M.A.,  Assistant  Master  in  Harrow  School ;  late  Fellow 
of  Trinity  College,  Oxford.  With  an  Appendix  containing  Emauuel 
Deutsch's  Article  on  "  Islam."  12mo,  Cloth,  $1  50. 

MYERS'S  REMAINS  OF  LOST  EMPIRES.  Remains  of  Lost  Empires: 
Sketches  of  the  Ruins  of  Palmyra,  Nineveh,  Babylon,  and  Persepolis, 
with  some  Notes  on  India  and  the  Cashmerian  Himalayas.  By  P.  V.  N. 
MYERS.  Illustrations.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 


2          Harper  6°  Brothers'  Vahiable  and  Interesting  Works. 

NORDHOFF'S  COMMUNISTIC  SOCIETIES  OP  THE  UNITED  STATED 
The  Communistic  Societies  of  the  United  States ;  including  Detailed 
Accounts,  from  Personal  Visit  and  Observation,  of  the  Economists, 
Zoarites,  Shakers,  the  Amana,  Oneida,  Bethel,  Aurora,  Icarian,  and  other 
existing  Societies.  With  Particulars  of  their  Religious  Creeds  and  Prac- 
tices, their  Social  Theories  and  Life,  Numbers,  Industries,  and  Present 
Condition.  By  CHARLES  NORDHOFF.  Illustrations.  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 

NORDHOFF'S  CALIFORNIA.  California:  for  Health,  Pleasure,  and  Res, 
idence.  A  Book  for  Travellers  and  Settlers.  Illustrated.  8vo.  Cloth, 
$250. 

NORDHOFF'S  NORTHERN  CALIFORNIA,  OREGON,  AND  THE  SAND* 
WICH  ISLANDS.  Northern  California,  Oregon,  and  the  Sandwich 
Islands.  By  CHARLES  NORDHOFF.  Profusely  Illustrated.  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

BAKER'S  (Sm  SAMUEL)  ISMAILlA.  Ismaili'a ;  a  Narrative  of  the  Expe- 
dition to  Central  Africa  for  the  Suppression  of  the  Slave-Trade,  organ- 
ized by  ISMAIL,  KHEDIVE  OF  EGYPT.  By  Sir  SAMUEL  WHITE  BAKKR 
PASHA.,  F.R.S.,  F.R.G.S.  With  Maps,  Portraits,  and  upward  of  50  full- 
page  Illustrations  by  Zwecker  and  Durand.  Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

LEWIS'S  HISTORY  OF  GERMANY.  A  History  of  Germany,  from  the 
Earliest  Times.  Founded  on  Dr.  DAVID  MULLEU'S  "History  of  the 
German  People."  By  CHARLTON  T.  LEWIS.  With  Illustrations.  Crowu 
Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

COLERIDGE'S  (SARA)  MEMOIR  AND  LETTERS.  Memoir  and  Letters 
of  Sara  Coleridge.  Edited  by  her  Daughter.  With  Two  Portraits  on 
Steel.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

SMILES'S  HUGUENOTS  AFTER  THE  REVOCATION.  The  Huguenots 
in  France  after  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes ;  with  a  Visit  to 
the  Country  of  the  Vaudois.  By  SAMUEL  SMILES,  Author  of  "  The  Hu- 
guenots: their  Settlements,  Churches,  and  Industries  in  England  and 
Ireland,"  "Self- Help,"  "Character,"  "Life  of  the  Stephensons"  &c. 
Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 

LIVINGSTONE'S  LAST  JOURNALS.  The  Last  Journals  of  David  Living- 
stone, in  Central  Africa,  from  1865  to  his  Death.  Continued  by  a  Nar- 
rative of  his  Last  Moments  and  Sufferings,  obtained  from  his  Faithful 
Servants  Chumah  and  Susi.  By  HORACE  WALLER,  F.R.G.S.,  Rector  of 
Twywell,  Northampton.  With  Maps  and  Illustrations.  Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 
Cheap,  Popular  Edition,  Svo,  Cloth,  with  Map  and  Illustrations,  $2  50. 

SWINTON'S  BIBLE  WORD-BOOK.  Bible  Word-Book :  A  Glossary  of 
Scripture  Terms  which  have  Changed  their  Popular  Meaning,  or  are  no 
longer  in  General  Use.  By  WILLIAM  SWINTON,  Author  of  "Harper's 
Language  Series,"  "Word-Book,"  "Word-Analysis,"  &c.  Edited  by 
Prof.  T.  J.  COTS'ANT,  D.D.  16mo,  Cloth,  $1  00. 

SMILES'S  BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  MEN.  Self- Help.  —  Character.  —Thrift. 
By  SAMUEL  SMILES.  3  vols,  12mo,  Cloth,  $1  50  each. 

FLAMMARION'S  ATMOSPHERE.  The  Atmosphere.  Translated  from  the 
French  of  CAMILLE  FLAMMARIONT.  Edited  by  JAMES  GLAISHER,  F.R.S., 
Superintendent  of  the  Magnetical  and  Meteorological  Department  of  the 
Royal  Observatory  at  Greenwich.  With  10  Chromo-Lithographs  and  SG 
Woodcuts.  Svo,  Cloth,  $6  00;  Half  Calf,  $S  25. 

HUDSON'S  HISTORY  OF  JOURNALISM.  Journalism  in  the  United  States, 
from  1690  to  18T2.  BY  FREDERICK  HUDSON.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

PIKE'S  SUB-TROPICAL  RAMBLES.  Sub-Tropical  Rambles  in  the  Land 
of  the  Aphanapteryx.  By  NICOLAS  PIKE,  U.  S.  Consul,  Port  Louis, 
Mauritius.  Profusely  Illustrated  from  the  Author's  own  Sketches ;  con- 
taining also  Maps  and  Valuable  Meteorological  Charts.  Crown  Svo, 
Cloth,  $3  50. 

TRISTRAM'S  THE  LAND  OF  MOAB.  The  Result  of  Travels  and  Discov- 
eries on  the  East  Side  of  the  Dead  Sea  and  the  Jordan.  By  H.  B.  TRIS- 
TRAM, M,A.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  Master  of  the  Greatham  Hospital,  and  Hon. 
Canon  of  Durham.  With  a  Chapter  on  the  Persian  Palace  of  Mashita, 
by  JAS.  FERGUSON,  F.R.S.  With  Mcp  and  Illustrations.  Crown  Svo, 
Cloth,  $2  50. 

SANTO  DOMINGO,  Past  and  Present  ;  with  a  Glance  at  Hayti.  By  SAMUKL 
HAZARD.  Maps  and  Illustrations.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 


Harper  6°  Brothers'  Valuable  and  Interesting  Works.          3 

THE  TREATY  OP  WASHINGTON :  its  Negotiation,  Execution,  and  the 
Discussions  Relating  Thereto.    By  CALEB  CUBBING.    Crown  8vo,  Cloth, 
$2  00. 
PRIME'S  I  GO  A-FISHING.   I  Go  a-Fishing.   By  W.  C.  PKIMK.   Crown  Svo, 

Cloth,  $2  50. 
SCOTT'S  AMERICAN  FISHING.   Fishing  in  American  Waters.   By  GENIO 

C.  SCOTT.  With  1TO  Illustrations.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 
SCHWEINFURTH'S  HEART  OF  AFRICA.  The  Heart  of  Africa ;  or, 
Three  Years'  Travels  and  Adventures  in  the  Unexplored  Regions  of  the 
Centre  of  Africa.  From  1868  to  18T1.  By  Dr.  GEORG  SOHWEINFURTH. 
Translated  by  ELLEN  E.  FREWEE,  With  an  Introduction  by  Wmwooi> 
RKADE.  Illustrated  by  about  130  Woodcuts  from  Drawings  made  by  the 
Author,  and  with  Two  Maps.  2  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $8  00. 
VINCENT'S  LAND  OF  THE  WHITE  ELEPHANT.  The  Land  of  the 
White  Elephant:  Sights  and  Scenes  in  Southeastern  Asia.  A  Personal 
Narrative  of  Travel  and  Adventure  in  Farther  India,  embracing  the 
Countries  of  Burma,  Siam,  Cambodia,  and  Cochin-Chin  a  (1871-2)".  By 
FRANK  VINCENT,  Jr.  Magnificently  Illustrated  with  Maps,  Plans,  and 
numerous  Woodcuts.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

ANNUAL  RECORD  OF  SCIENCE  AND  INDUSTRY.  Prepared  by  SPEN- 
CER F.  BAIBD,  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  with  the  Assistance  of  Emi- 
nent Men  of  Science.  Now  ready,  the  volumes  for  1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 
1875.  12mo,  Cloth,  $2  00  per  volume.  The  volumes  sold  separately. 
POETS  OF  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  The  Poets  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century.  Selected  and  Edited  by  the  Rev.  ROIJERT  ARIS  WILL- 
MOTT.  With  English  and  American  Additions,  arranged  by  EVERT  A. 
DUYCKINCK,  Editor  of  "Cyclopaedia  of  American  Literature."  Compris- 
ing Selections  from  the  Greatest  Authors  of  the  Age.  Superbly  Illus- 
trated with  141  Engravings  from  Designs  by  the  most  Eminent  Artists. 
In  Elegant  small  4to  form,  printed  on  Superfine  Tinted  Paper,  richly 
bound  in  extra  Cloth,  Beveled,  Gilt  Edges,  $5  00  ;  Half  Calf,  $5  50  ;  Full 
Turkey  Morocco,  $9  00. 

THE  REVISION  OF  THE  ENGLISH  VERSION  OF  THE  NEW  TESTA- 
MENT. With  an  Introduction  by  the  Rev.  P.  SCIIAFF,  D.D.  618  pp., 
Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

This  work  embraces  in  one  volume  : 

I.  ON  A  FRESH  REVISION  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NEW  TESTA- 
MENT. By  J.  B.  LIGHTFOOT,  D.D.,  Canon  of  St.  Paul's  and  Hul- 
sen  Professor  of  Divinity,  Cambridge.  Second  Edition,  Revised. 
196  pp. 

II.  ON  THE  AUTHORIZED  VERSION  ON  THE  NEW  TESTA- 
MENT in  Connection  with  some  Recent  Proposals  for  its  Revision. 
By  RICHARD  CHENE vix  TRENCH,  D.D. ,  Archbishop  of  Dublin .  194  pp. 
III.  CONSIDERATIONS  ON  THE  REVISION  OF  THE  ENGLISH 
VERSION  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  By  C.  J.  ELLIOOTT,  D.D. 
Bishop  of  Gloucester  and  Bristol.  178  pp. 

MOTLEY'S  DUTCH  REPUBLIC.  The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic.  By 
JOHN.  LOTIIROP  MOTLEY,  LL.D.,  D.C.L.  With  a  Portrait  of  William  of 
Orange.  3  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $10  50. 

MOTLEY'S  UNITED  NETHERLANDS.  History  of  the  United  Nether- 
lands :  from  the  Death  of  William  the  Silent  to  the  Twelve  Years'  Truce 
- 1609.  With  a  full  View  of  the  English-Dutch  Struggle  against  Spain, 
and  of  the  Origin  and  Destruction  of  the  Spanish  Armada.  By  JOHN 
LOTHROP  MOTLEY,  LL.D.,  D.C.L.  Portraits.  4  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $14  00. 
MOTLEY'S  LIFE  AND  DEATH  OF  JOHN  OF  BARNEVELD.  Life  and 
Death  of  John  of  Barneveld,  Advocate  of  Holland.  With  a  View  of  the 
Primary  Causes  and  Movements  of  "  The  Thirty  Years'  War."  By  JOHN 
LOTIIROP  MOTLEY,  D.C.L.,  Illustrated.  In  Two  Vols.  Svo,  Cloth,  $7  CO. 
HAYDN'S  DICTIONARY  OF  DATES,  relating  to  all  Ages  and  Nations. 
For  Universal  Reference.  Edited  by  BENJAMIN  VINCENT,  Assistant  Secre- 
tary and  Keeper  of  the  Library  of  the  Royal  Institution  of  Great  Britain  ; 
and  Revised  for  the  Use  of  American  Readers.  Svo.  Cloth,  $5  00  ;  Sheep, 
$600. 


4          Harper  &°  Brothers*  Valuable  and  Interesting  Works. 

WALLACE'S  MALAY  ARCHIPELAGO.  The  Malay  Archipelago:  the 
Land  of  the  Orane-Utan  and  the  Bird  of  Paradise.  A  Narrative  of  Trav- 
el, 1S54-1S02.  With  Studies  of  Man  and  Nature.  By  ALFRED  RUKSKL 
WALLACE.  With  Ten  Maps  and  Fifty-one  Elegant  Illustrations.  Crown 
8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

WHYMPER'S  ALASKA.  Travel  and  Adventure  in  the  Territory  of  Alas- 
ka, formerly  Russian  America — now  Ceded  to  the  United  States — and  in 
various  other  parts  of  the  North  Pacific.  By  FREDERICK  WUYMPEB. 
With  Map  and  Illustrations.  Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

ORTON'S  ANDES  AND  THE  AMAZON.  The  Andes  and  the  Amazon ;  or, 
Across  the  Continent  of  South  America.  By  JAMES  ORTON,  M.A.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Natural  History  in  Vassar  College,  Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y.,  and 
Corresponding  Member  of  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences,  Philadel- 
phia. With  a  New  Map  of  Equatorial  America  and  numerous  Illustra- 
tions. New  and  Enlarged  Edition.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

WINCHELL'S  SKETCHES  OF  CREATION.  Sketches  of  Creation:  a 
Popular  View  of  some  of  the  Grand  Conclusions  of  the  Sciences  in  ref- 
erence to  the  History  of  Matter  and  of  Life.  Together  with  a  Statement 
of  the  Intimations  of  Science  respecting  the  Primordial  Condition  and 
the  Ultimate  Destiny  of  the  Earth  and  the  Solar  System.  By  ALEXAN- 
DER WINCIIELL,  LL.D.,  Chancellor  of  the  Syracuse  University.  With 
Illustrations.  12mo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 

WHITE'S  MASSACRE  OF  ST.  BARTHOLOMEW.  The  Massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew :  Preceded  by  a  History  of  the  Religious  Wars  in  the  Reign 
of  Charles  IX.  By  HENKY  WHITE,  M.  A.  With  Illustrations.  Svo,  Cloth, 
$1  75. 

LOSSING'S  FIELD-BOOK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  Pictorial  Field-Book 
of  the  Revolution  ;  or,  Illustrations,  by  Pen  and  Pencil,  of  the  Histoiy, 
Biography,  Scenery,  Relics,  and  Traditions  of  the  War  for  Independ- 
ence. By  BKNSON  J.  LOBSING.  2  vols,,  Svo,  Cloth,  $14  00 ;  Sheep,  $15  00 ; 
Half  Calf,  $18  00 ;  Full  Turkey  Morocco,  $22  00. 

LOSSING'S  FIELD-BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  OF  1812.  Pictorial  Field-Book 
of  the  War  of  1812 ;  or,  Illustrations,  by  Pen  and  Pencil,  of  the  History, 
Biography,  Scenery,  Relics,  and  Traditions  of  the  Last  War  for  Ameri- 
can Independence.  By  BENSON  J.  LOSSING.  With  several  hundred  En- 
gravings on  Wood,  by  Lossing  and  Barritt,  chiefly  from  Original  Sketch- 
es by  the  Author.  1088  pages,  Svo,  Cloth,  $700;  Sheep,  $8  50;  Half 
Calf,  $10  00. 

ALFORD'S  GREEK  TESTAMENT.  The  Greek  Testament :  with  a  crit- 
ically revised  Text ;  a  Digest  of  Various  Readings ;  Marginal  Referencea 
to  Verbal  and  Idiomatic  Usage ;  Prolegomena  ;^and  a  Critical  and  Exe- 
getical  Commentary.  For  the  Use  of  Theological  Students  and  Minis- 
ters. By  HENRY  ALFORB,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Canterbury.  Vol.  I.,  contain- 
ing the  Four  Gospels.  944  pages,  Svo,  Cloth,  $G  00 ;  Sheep,  $6  50. 

ABBOTT'S  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT.  The  History  of  Frederick  the 
Second,  called  Frederick  the  Great.  By  JOHN  S.  C.  ABBOTT.  Elegantly 
Illustrated.  Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

ABBOTT'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  The  French 
Revolution  of  1789,  as  viewed  in  the  Light  of  Republican  Institutions. 
By  JOHN  S.  C.  ABBOTT.  With  100  Engravings.  Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

ABBOTT'S  NAPOLEON  BONAPARTE,  The  History  of  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte. By  JOHN  S.  C.  ABBOTT.  With  Maps,  Woodcuts,  and  Portraits  on 
Steel.  2  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $10  00. 

ABBOTT'S  NAPOLEON  AT  ST.  HELENA;  or,  Interesting  Anecdotes  and 
Remarkable  Conversations  of  the  Emperor  during  the  Five  and  a  Half 
Years  of  his  Captivity.  Collected  from  the  Memorials  of  Las  Casas, 
O'Meara,  Montholon,  Antommarchi,  and  others.  By  JOHN  S.  C.  ABBOTT. 
With  Illustrations.  Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

ADDISON'S  COMPLETE  WORKS.  The  Works  of  Joseph  Addisou,  em- 
bracing the  whole  of  the  "Spectator."  Complete  iii  3  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth, 
$600. 


& 


Harper  &  Brothers'  Valuable  and  Interesting  Works.          5 

ALCOCK'S  JAPAN.  The  Capital  of  the  Tycoon :  a  Narrative  of  a  Three 
Years'  Residence  in  Japan.  By  Sir  RCTHERFOHD  ALCOCK,  K.C.B.,  Her 
Majesty's  Envoy  Extraordinary  and  Minister  Plenipotentiary  in  Japan. 
With  Maps  and  Engravings.  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

ALISON'S  HISTORY  OF  EUROPE.  FIRST  SERIES:  From  the  Commence- 
ment of  the  French  Revolution,  in  1789,  to  the  Restoration  of  the  Bour- 
bons, in  1815.  [In  addition  to  the  Notes  on  Chapter  LXXVL,  which  cor- 
rect the  errors  of  the  original  work  concerning  the  United  States,  a  copi- 
ous Analytical  Index  has  been  appended  to  this  American  Edition.] 
SECOND  SERIES:  From  the  Fall  of  Napoleon,  in  1S15,  to  the  Accession  of 
Louis  Napoleon,  in  1852.  8  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $16  00. 

EARTH'S  NORTH  AND  CENTRAL  AFRICA.  Travels  and  Discoveries  in 
North  and  Central  Africa :  being  a  Journal  of  an  Expedition  undertaken 
under  the  Auspices  of  H.B.M.'s  Government,  in  the  Years  1849-1855.  By 
HENRY  BARTII,  Ph.D.,  D.C.L.  Illustrated.  3  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $12  00. 

HENRY   WARD    BEECHER'S    SERMONS.     Sermons  by  HENRY  WART> 

BEECIIKR,  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn.  Selected  from  Published  and 
Unpublished  Discourses,  and  Revised  by  their  Author.  With  Steel  Por- 
trait. Complete  in  2  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

LYMAN  BEECHER'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY,  &c.  Autobiography,  Corres- 
pondence, &c.,  of  Lyman  Beecher,  D.D.  Edited  by  his  Son,  CHARLES 
BEEOHER.  With  Three  Steel  Portraits,  and  Engravings  on  Wood.  In  2 
vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

BOSWELL'S  JOHNSON.  The  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.  Including 
a  Journey  to  the  Hebrides.  By  JAMES  BOSWELL,  Esq.  A  New  Edition, 
with  numeroua  Additions  and  Notes.  By  JOHN  WILSON  CP.OKKR,  LL.D., 
F.R.S.  Portrait  of  Boswell.  2  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 

DRAPER'S  CIVIL  WAR.  History  of  the  American  Civil  War.  By  JOHN 
W.  DRAPER,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Chemistry  and  Physiology  in  the 
University  of  New  York.  In  Three  Vols.  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50  per  vol. 

DRAPER'S  INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  EUROPE.  A  Histo- 
ry of  the  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe.  By  JOHN  W.  DRAPER, 
M.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Chemistry  and  Physiology  in  the  University 
of  New  York.  (New  Edition  in  Press.) 

DRAPER'S  AMERICAN  CIVIL  POLICY.  Thoughts  on  the  Future  Civil 
Policy  of  America.  By  JOHN  W.  DRAPER,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of 
Chemistry  and  Physiology  in  the  University  of  New  York.  Crown  Svo, 
Cloth,  $2  50. 

DU  CHAILLU'S  AFRICA.  Explorations  and  Adventures  in  Equatorial  Af- 
rica, with  Accounts  of  the  Manners  and  Customs  of  the  People,  and  of 
the  Chase  of  the  Gorilla,  the  Crocodile,  Leopard,  Elephant,  Hippopota- 
mus, and  other  Animals.  By  PAUL  B.  Du  CIIAILLU.  Numerous  Illus- 
trations. Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

DU  CHAILLU'S  ASHANGO  LAND.  A  Journey  to  Ashango  Land:  and 
Further  Penetration  into  Equatorial  Africa.  By  PAUL  B.  Du  CIIAILLU. 
New  Edition.  Handsomely  Illustrated.  Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

BELLOWS'S  OLD  WORLD.  The  Old  World  in  its  New  Face :  Impressions 
of  Europe  in  186T-18G8.  By  HENRY  W.  BELLOWS.  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth, 
$350. 

BRODHEAD'S  HISTORY  OF  NEW  YORK.  History  of  the  State  of  New 
York.  By  JOHN  ROMEYN  BROUHEAD.  1G09-1G91.  2  vols.  Svo,  Cloth, 
$3  00  per  vol. 

BROUGHAM'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  Life  and  Times  of  HENRY,  LOIM. 
BROUGHAM.  Written  by  Himself.  In  Three  Volumes.  12mo,  Cloth, 
$2  00  per  vol. 

BULWER'S  PROSE  WORKS.  Miscellaneous  Prose  Works  of  Edward  Bu  I- 
wer,  Lord  Lytton.  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 


6          Harper  &  Brothers^  Valuable  and  Interesting  Works. 

BULWER'S  HORACE.  The  Odes  and  Epodes  of  Horace.  A  Metrical 
Translation  into  English.  With  Introduction  and  Commentaries.  By 
LORD  LYTTON.  With  Latin  Text  from  the  Editions  of  Orelli,  Macleanei 
and  Yonge.  12mo,  Cloth,  $1  75. 

BULWER'S  KING  ARTHUR,  A  Poem.  By  LORD  LYTTON.  New  Edition, 
12mo,  Cloth,  $1  75. 

BURNS'S  LIFE  AND  WORKS.  The  Life  and  Works  of  Robert  Burns, 
Edited  by  ROBEHT  CHAMBERS.  4  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $6  00. 

REINDEER,  DOGS,  AND  SNOW-SHOES.  A  Journal  of  Siberian  Travel 
and  Explorations  made  in  the  Years  1SG5-67.  By  RICHARD  J.  BUSH,  hue 
of  the  Russo-American  Telegraph, Expedition.  Illustrated.  Crown  Svo, 
Cloth,  $3  00. 

CARLYLE'S  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT.  History  of  Friedrich  II.,  called 
Frederick  the  Great.  By  THOMAS  CAELYLE.  Portraits,  Maps,  Plans, 
&c.  6  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $12  00. 

CARLYLE'S  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  History  of  the  French  Revolution. 
2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

CARLYLE'S  OLIVER  CROMWELL.  Letters  and  Speeches  of  Oliver 
Cromwell.  With  Elucidations  and  Connecting  Narrative.  2  vols.,  12ino, 
Cloth,  $3  50. 

CHALMERS'S  POSTHUMOUS  WORKS.  The  Posthumous  Works  of  Dr. 
Chalmers.  Edited  by  his  Son-in-Law,  Rev.  WILLIAM  HANNA,  LL.D. 
Complete  in  9  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $13  50. 

COLERIDGE'S  COMPLETE  WORKS.  The  Complete  Works  of  Samuel 
Taylor  Coleridge.  With  an  Introductory  Essay  upon  his  Philosophical 
and  Theological  Opinions.  Edited  by  Professor  SHEDD.  Complete  in 
Seven  Vols.  With  a  Portrait.  Small  8vo,  Cloth,  $10  50. 

DOOLITTLE'S  CHINA.  Social  Life  of  the  Chinese :  with  some  Account  of 
their  Religious,  Governmental,  Educational,  and  Business  Customs  and 
Opinions.  With  special  but  not  exclusive  Reference  to  Fuhchau.  By 
Rev.  JUSTUS  DOOLITTLE,  Fourteen  Years  Member  of  the  Fuhchau  Mis- 
sion of  the  American  Board.  Illustrated  with  more  that  150  character- 
istic Engravings  on  Wood.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

GIBBON'S  ROME.  History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
By  EDWARD  GIBBON.  With  Notes  by  Rev.  H.  H.  MILMAN  and  M.  GUIZOT. 
A  new  cheap  Edition.  To  which  is  added  a  complete  Index  of  the  whole 
Work,  and  a  Portrait  of  the  Author.  6  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $6  00. 

HAZEN'S  SCHOOL  AND  ARMY  IN  GERMANY  AND  FRANCE.    The 

School  and  the  Army  in  Germany  and  France,  with  a  Diary  of  Siege 
Life  at  Versailles.  By  Brevet  Major-General  W.  B.  HAZEN,  U.S.A.,  Col- 
onel Sixth  Infantry.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

HARPER'S  NEW  CLASSICAL  LIBRARY.    Literal  Trans5ations. 

The  following  Vols.  are  now  ready.    12mo,  Cloth,  $1  50  each. 

CAESAR. — VIRGIL. —  SALLUST. — HORACE. —  CICERO'S  ORATIONS. —  CICERO'S 
OFFICES,  &c. — CICERO  ON  ORATORY  AND  ORATORS. — TACITUS  (2  vols.). 
—TERENCE.— SOPHOCLES.— JUVENAL.— XENOPHON.— HOMER'S  ILIAD.— 
HOMER'S  ODYSSEY.  — HERODOTUS.  — DEMOSTHENES.  — THUCYDIDES.  — 
-<ESCHYLUS.— EURIPIDES  (2  vols.).— LIVY  (2  vols.) — PLATO. 

DAVIS'S  CARTHAGE.  Carthage  and  her  Remains:  being  an  Account  of 
the  Excavations  and  Researches  on  the  Site  of  the  Phoenician  Metropo- 
lis in  Africa  and  other  adjacent  Places.  Conducted  under  the  Auspice* 
of  Her  Majesty's  Government.  By  Dr.  D\vis,  F.R.G.S.  Profusely  Illus- 
trated with  Maps,  Woodcuts,  Chromo-Lithographs,  &c.  Svo,  Cloth, 
$400. 

EDGEWORTH'S  (Miss)  NOVELS.  With  Engravings.  10  vols.,  ISmo, 
Cloth,  $15  00. 

GROTE'S  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.    12  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $18  00. 


Harper  6°  Brothers'  Valuable  and  Interesting  Works.          7 

HELPS'S  SPANISH  CONQUEST.  The  Spanish  Conquest  in  America,  and 
its  Relation  to  the  History  of  Slavery  and  to  the  Government  of  Colonies. 
By  ARTHUR  HELPS.  4  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $6  00. 

BALE'S  (Mns.)  WOMAN'S  RECORD.  Woman's  Record  ;  or,  Biographical 
Sketches  of  all  Distinguished  Women,  from  the  Creation  to  the  Present 
Time.  Arranged  in  Four  Eras,  with  Selections  from  Female  Writers  of 
Each  Era.  By  Mrs.  SARAH  JOSEPUA  HALE.  Illustrated  with  more  than 
200  Portraits.  8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

HALL'S  ARCTIC  RESEARCHES.  Arctic  Researches  and  Life  among  the 
Esquimaux:  being  the  Narrative  of  an  Expedition  in  Search  of  Sir  John 
Fianklin,  in  the  Years  1SGO,  1861,  and  18(52.  By  CHARLES  FUANOIS  HALL. 
With  Maps  and  100  Illustrations.  The  Illustrations  are  from  the  Origi- 
nal Drawings  by  Charles  Parsons,  Henry  L.  Stephens,  Solomon  Eytinge, 
W.  S.  L.  Jewett,  and  Grauville  Perkins,  after  Sketches  by  Captain  Hall. 
8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

HALLAM'S  CONSTITUTIONAL  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND,  from  the  Ac- 
cession of  Henry  VII.  to  the  Death  of  George  II.  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 

HALLAM'S  LITERATURE.  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe  dur- 
ing the  Fifteenth,  Sixteenth,  and  Seventeenth  Centuries.  By  HENRY 
HALL  AM.  2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 

HALLAM'S  MIDDLE  AGES.  State  of  Europe-  during  the  Middle  Ages. 
By  HENRY  HALLAM.  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 

HILDRETH'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  FIRST  SERIES: 
From  the  First  Settlement  of  the  Country  to  the  Adoption  of  the  Federal 
Constitution.  SECOND  SERIKS:  From  the  Adoption  of  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution to  the  End  of  the  Sixteenth  Congress.  6  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth, 
$18  00. 

HUME'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND.  History  of  England,  from  the  Inva- 
sion of  Julius  Caesar  to  the  Abdication  of  James  II.,  1688.  By  DAVIT> 
HUME.  A  new  Edition,  with  the  Author's  last  Corrections  and  Improve- 
ments. To  which  is  Prefixed  a  short  Account  of  his  Life,  written  by 
Himself.  With  a  Portrait  of  the  Author.  6  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $6  00. 

JAY'S  WORKS.  Complete  Works  of  Rev.  William  Jay :  comprising  his 
Sermons,  Family  Discourses,  Morning  and  Evening  Exercises  for  every 
Day  in  the  Year,  Family  Prayers,  &c.  Author's  enlarged  Edition,  re- 
vised. 3  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $6  00. 

JEFFERSON'S  DOMESTIC  LIFE.  The  Domestic  Life  of  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son: compiled  from  Family  Letters  and  Reminiscences,  by  his  Great- 
Granddaughter,  SARAU  N.  RANDOLPH.  With  Illustrations.  Crown  Svo, 
Illuminated  Cloth,  Beveled  Edges,  $2  50. 

JOHNSON'S  COMPLETE  WORKS.  The  Works  of  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D. 
With  an  Essay  on  his  Life  and  Genius,  by  ARTUUR  MCRPUY,  Esq.  Por- 
trait of  Johnson.  2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 

KINGLAKE'S  CRIMEAN  WAR.  The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  and  an  Ac- 
count of  its  Progress  down  to  the  Death  of  Lord  Raglan.  By  ALEXAN- 
DER WILLIAM  KINGLAKE.  With  Maps  and  Plans.  Three  Vols.  reach'. 
12mo,  Cloth,  $2  00  per  vol. 

KINGSLEY'S  WEST  INDIES.  At  Last:  A  Christmas  in  the  West  Indies. 
By  CHARLES  KINGSLEV.  Illustrated.  12mo,  Cloth,  $1  50. 

KRUMM  A  CHER'S  DAVID,  KING  OF  ISRAEL.  David,  the  King  of  Isra- 
el: a  Portrait  drawn  from  Bible  History  and  the  Book  of  Psalms.  By 
FIIF.DEIUCK  WILLIAM  KRUMMAOIIER,  D.D.,  Author  of  "Elijah  the  Tish- 
bite,"  &c.  Translated  under  the  express  Sanction  of  the  Author  by  the 
Rev.  M.  G.  E ASTON,  M.A.  With  a  Letter  from  Dr.  Krummacher  to  his 
American  Readers,  and  a  Portrait.  12mo.  Cloth,  $1  75. 

LAMB'S  COMPLETE  WORKS.  The  Works  of  Charles  Lamb.  Compris- 
ing his  Letters,  Poem?,  Essays  of  Elia,  Essays  upon  Shakepeare,  Ho- 
garth, &c.,  and  a  Sketch  of  his  Life,  with  the  Final  Memorials,  by  T.  NOON 
TALFOUBD.  Portrait.  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 


8          Harper  &°  Brothers'  Valuable  and  Interesting  Works. 

LIVINGSTONE'S  SCT'TH  AFRICA.  Missionary  Travels  and  Researches 
in  South  Africa;  including  a  Sketch  of  Sixteen  Years'  Residence  in  the 
Interior  of  Africa,  and  a  Journey  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Loan- 
do  on  the  West  Coast ;  thence  across  the  Continent,  down  the  River 
Zambesi,  to  the  Eastern  Ocean.  By  DAVID  LIVINGSTONE,  LL.D.,  D.C.L. 
With  Portrait,  Maps  by  Arrowsmith,  and  numerous  Illustrations.  8vo, 
Cloth,  $4  50. 

LIVINGSTONES'  ZAMBESI.  Narrative  of  an  Expedition  to  the  Zambesi 
and  its  Tributaries,  and  of  the  Discovery  of  the  Lakes  Shirwa  and  Ny- 
assa.  1858-1864.  By  DAVID  and  CIIABLES  LIVINGSTONE.  With  Map  and 
Illustrations.  8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

M'CLINTOCK  &  STRONG'S  CYCLOPAEDIA.  Cyclopaedia  of  Biblical, 
Theological,  and  Ecclesiastical  Literature.  Prepared  by  the  Rev.  JOHN 
M'CLINTOCK,  D.D.,  and  JAMES  STRONG,  S.T.D.  6  vols.  now  ready.  Royal 
8vo,  Price  per  vol.,  Cloth,  $5  00;  Sheep,  $6  00;  Half  Morocco,  $8  00. 

MARCY'S  ARMY  LIFE  ON  THE  BORDER.  Thirty  Years  of  Army  Life 
on  the  Border.  Comprising  descriptions  of  the  Indian  Nomads  of  the 
Plains  ;  Explorations  of  New  Territory ;  a  Trip  across  the  Rocky  Mount- 
ains in  the  Winter;  Descriptions  of  the  Habits  of  Different  Animals 
found  in  the  West,  and  the  Methods  of  Hunting  them ;  with  Incidents 
in  the  Life  of  Different  Frontier  Men,  &c.,  &c.  By  Brevet  Brigadier- 
General  R.  B.  MAKCY,  U.S.A.,  Author  of  "The  Prairie  Traveller."  With 
numerous  Illustrations.  Svo,  Cloth,  Beveled  Edges,  $3  00. 

MACAULAY'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND.  The  History  of  England  from 
the  Accession  of  James  II.  By  TIIOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY.  With 
an  Original  Portrait  of  the  Author.  5  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $10  00;  12mo, 
Cloth,  $5  00. 

MOSHEIM'S  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY,  Ancient  and  Modern;  in 
which  the  Rise,  Progress,  and  Variation  of  Church  Power  are  considered 
in  their  Connection  with  the  State  of  Learning  and  Philosophy,  and  the 
Political  History  of  Europe  during  that  Period.  Translated,  with  Notes, 
&c.,  by  A.  MACLAINK,  D.D.  A  new  Edition,  continued  to  1826,  by  C. 
COOTK,  LL.D.  2  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 

THE  DESERT  OF  THE  EXODUS.  Journeys  on  Foot  in  the  Wilderness 
of  the  Forty  Years'  Wanderings;  undertaken  in  connection  with  the 
Ordnance  Survey  of  Sinai  and  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund.  By  E. 
II.  PALMER,  M.A.,  Lord  Almoner's  Professor  of  Arabic,  and  Fellow  of 
St.  John's  College,  Cambridge.  With  Maps  and  numerous  Illustrations 
from  Photographs  and  Drawings  taken  on  the  spot  by  the  Sinai  Survey 
Expedition  and  C.  F.  Tyrwhitt  Drake.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

OLIPH  ANT'S  CHINA  AND  JAPAN.  Narrative  of  the  Earl  of  Elgin's  Mis- 
sion  to  China  and  Japan,  in  the  Years  1857,  '58,  '59.  By  LAURENCE  On- 
niANT,  Private  Secretary  to  Lord  Elgin.  Illustrations.  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

OLIPHANT'S  (MRS.)  LIFE  OF  EDWARD  IRVING.  The  Life  of  Edwaru 
Irving,  Minister  of  the  National  Scotch  Church,  London.  Illustrated  by 
his  Journals  and  Correspondence.  By  Mrs.  OLIPHANT.  Portrait.  Svo, 
Cloth,  $3  50. 

RAWLINSON'S  MANUAL  OF  ANCIENT  HISTORY.  A  Manual  of  An- 
cient History,  from  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Fall  of  the  Western  Empire. 
Comprising  the  History  of  Chaldsea,  Assyria,  Media,  Babylonia,  Lydia, 
Phoenicia,  Syria,  Judrea,  Egypt,  Carthage,  Persia,  Greece,  Macedonia, 
Parthia,  and  Rome.  By  GKOROR  RAWLINRON,  M.A.,  Camden  Professor 
of  Ancient  History  in  the  University  of  Oxford.  12mo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

RECLUS'S  THE  EARTH.  The  Earth:  A  Descriptive  History  of  the  Phe* 
nomena  and  Life  of  the  Globe.  By  F^LISEE  RF.CLUS.  Translated  by  the 
late  B.  B.  Woodward,  and  Edited  by  Henry  Woodward.  With  234  Maps 
and  Illustrations  and  23  Page  Maps  printed  in  Colors.  Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

RECLUS'S  OCEAN.  The  Ocean,  Atmosphere,  and  Life.  Being  the  Second 
Series  of  a  Descriptive  History  of  the  Life  of  the  Globe.  By  £LIP^R  Ri-> 
CLUS.  Profusely  Illustrated  with  250  Maps  or  Figures,  and  27  Maps 
printed  in  Colors.  Svo,  Cloth,  $G  00. 


m 

\I3JI 


i  m  B 


-a^8- 

riw»RY   OF  THE   UNIVERSITY  OF   CALIFORNIA 


><^N.  X^PK 


m 


UNIVERSITY   OF    CALIFORNIA 


w~ 

U.  C.  BERKELEY  LIBRAR IE. 


LIBRAR 


cobiaia?^ 


;^ 


UNIVERSITY   OF    CALIFORNIA 

%} 

NM 


LIBRARY   OF   THE    UNIVERSITY   OF 

GV 


\XO    ^3& 

UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA 


=       ^5§^ 

LIBRARY    OF   THE    UNIVERSITY  .OF 


